Holmesian Logic
by The Cat's Whiskers
Summary: Some thoughts about 'how is this my life' by one John Hamish Watson, blogger, sidekick, gallowglass and all round unsung hero of this lunatic asylum. Part 1 is 6 chapters and is set Season 2 after 1st 2 episodes but before Ep3. Part 2 is set post Season 2 and before Season 3 premiere in 2013 (when it will probably become AU)
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:**__ This story is "fan-fiction", based on the Television programme: "Sherlock", 2010 onwards contemporary TV series 'reimagining' which remains the intellectual property of creators/producers Steve Moffatt, Mark Gatiss, Steve Thompson, BBC1 et al. _

_It is not owned by "The Cat's Whiskers"; no money is being made, and it is purely for the enjoyment of fans of the show, etc., etc. Legal counsel has advised that "fan-fiction" falls within the bounds of "fair use" as defined by UK law (1740) and US law (1976). All 'Original characters, plots and story-settings remain the intellectual property of 'The Cat's Whiskers' and may not be reproduced or continued or expanded without her express permission to reproduce, continue or expand same. The Cat's Whiskers may be contacted at any time via Private Messaging for this purpose to request same. All excerpts of and reference to on-screen dialogue and aired episodes (including deleted scenes, episode commentaries, gag reels, additional (a.k.a. 'bonus') content) and on-screen named characters remain the property of the screenwriter(s). _

_**Notice: **__You are expressly and explicitly permitted and encouraged to save this story to your __**personal **__computer and/or other such device for your __**personal **__reading pleasure (only) if you so wish. Some years ago I suffered a serious loss of much of my works due to a computer software malware issue, and I managed to get 60 percent of it back thanks to other writers and readers who had saved my stories on their computers or knew about "web caching" and the Wayback Machine™ website archive service. Since I err on the side of paranoia, if I one day need to go through that process again [aaagh!] for any reason, you may be the reader who is able to help because you have the story saved on your hard drive/memory stick/iPad etc. Please do not, however, circulate the stories without asking me first. I can be contacted in all instances via Private Messaging Service. _

**_Summary:_** _Some thoughts about 'how is this my life?' by one John Hamish Watson, blogger, sidekick, gallowglass and all round unsung hero of this lunatic asylum. _

_**Rating - important:**_ _for site purposes only: K+ to M for references to suicide, psychopathy, sociopathy, BSDM, general family dysfunction and sundry unpleasantness. _

_Why? I do not believe that written works should be age-rated; it is a foolish and cruel form of censorship that discourages and de-incentivises reading at all, for both knowledge and pleasure which is disastrous for the hope of producing the next generation of Keats, Milton, Twain, Shakespeare, Christie, Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton, Cavendish, Blyton, C.S. Lewis, Joss Whedon, John Sullivan, Ian la Frenais & Dick Clement, James Perry & David Croft, Roy Clarke, Ronnie Barker & Ronnie Corbett, Eric Kripke, Jaime Paglia, Kyle Killen, and so on. Children know when they are being patronised, condescended to and cotton-wool bubble-wrapped from how the World Really Works and nothing is more guaranteed to stop them reading for pleasure and for knowledge as fast as that. _

_The above rating is listed so it conforms to ' ' requirements to rate all stories. This story contains mildly intemperate language entirely in context by very stressed people and sundry mild references to violence, drugs and rock 'n' roll, all of which can be seen and heard on daytime soaps (how's that for pre-watershed) by anyone from toddler age upwards. _

_Unfortunately Western social culture today after forty years of the liberal bigotry of Political Correctness is a pornographic and paedophilic society where promiscuity and selfishness are glorified as "good" and self-control, self-respect and personal responsibility are vilified, and as a result most of this stuff is now pre-watershed TV or actually watchable for free as live-action porn anywhere you spot any group of 12-25 year olds at about 11:00pm on a weekend. _

_The content in here is very tame compared to sexting, hook-ups, misogynistic and misandrist supposed 'erotica' reading and the casual daily porn viewing most third graders and older are now accessing from their smartphones in the school lunch break in between mainlining heroin as an expression of their 'right to self-expression' and dealing smack to the Babies and Toddlers group, because hey, if mum and dad are happy to dose them up with Ritalin to keep them quiet, quiescent and out of the way whilst they focus on their career, retail therapy, golf weekend or whatever's really important, what's wrong with big sis or bro getting in on some of that pocket money supplementing action? _

_I kid you not – according to police research data by 2013 one of the world's most successful 'new' online .com businesses (founded 2011) was "Silk Road" which sells illegal drugs by mail order direct from the manufacturers to any customer who can pay, cutting out the 'middle-man' drug traffickers/gangs/lords. They saw 200 percent growth in the first 18 months of business, which is beyond satire. _

**_Setting: T_**_his is a two part story: Part 1 is set general mid-late Season 2 and is told from John's POV. Part 2 is set after the famous Season 2 finale, before the premiere of Season 3 and again is mostly from John's POV. _

**_Story content note: _**_As with all my fan-fiction, I have tried to keep this story as accurate as to "canon" as possible. I have no option but to avoid the whole "pot-kettle-black" thing because I teach Creative Writing and wrote a textbook; Writing Fan-Fiction for New Writers (Is it 'Real Writing' and is it Useful?) © The Cat's Whiskers 2010-2012 and I am, therefore, very keen on 'Taking Your Writing Seriously'. My view is that fan-fiction is an excellent 'primer' for someone who has just started out writing (whatever type) and also for anyone moving into fiction writing from another writing field, as was the fact in my case. _

_If you are writing an AU story, you do have leeway, but otherwise it is only courteous and respectful to your readers, and a good way of honing your research skills, to make as much effort to be as accurate to canon as possible – if you are serious about being a proper writer, you need to learn and practice doing proper research and getting facts right – otherwise you will end up being a "must read" for all the wrong reasons – like people only watch Ben Hur for the centurion wearing the wristwatch, or Braveheart for the battle scene where the man falls over to reveal a pair of very modern jeans under his kilt – or the collectible historical romance set in 17__th__ Century England where the hero invites the heroine to 'freshen up' in his indoor bathroom…with flushing WC. _

_It also shows your respect to the creators of the show, the scriptwriters and production crew who film the series and work long into the night editing it all together, often in atrocious weather or stuffy little mixing suites but who never get the glory; remember the cameraman and boom operator are _also _out there filming in the howling gale/downpour for fifteen solid hours and they never get any red carpet treatment. If you've ever gone to a fan convention/Comic Con have you ever taken ten seconds away from salivating over Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones or Lara Pulver's particulars, depending on which way you sway, to let Steve Thompson or Steve Moffat bask in the fan-love? For another example, all those shows filmed in England or Vancouver, where the weather is wet or wetter - and the actors themselves, who work very hard and put a lot of time and effort into getting their on-screen characters "right" and again work through illness/injury (e.g., Jared Padalecki's broken wrist in Supernatural, and Alex O'Loughlin's shoulder injury in Hawaii 5-0) or things like pregnancy (e.g., Erica Cerra in A Town Called Eureka) and other stresses to give the viewer good value. _

_As well as being respectful to everyone involved with the show you are writing about, adhering to canon tropes also gives you great story material. Shows like A Town Called Eureka is very good for giving you snippets of plausible sounding 'real life' Scienceze, without drifting into Star Trek techno-babble. One of the best things about Hawaii 5-0 the 2010 reimagining is that because all the episode titles are in Polynesian, and both Polynesian and Pidgin are used in the show, is that it really makes you think about _**_words_**_ and _**_context_**_ and _**_language_**_ – making sure that character 'A' really does talk like that does a great deal for honing your ear for dialogue and helps you create fictional realisms by giving your characters 'authentic' voices – Danny Williams uses words like 'ergo' and 'commensurately' in context and with precision, even in the midst of a cargument or Danno-rant, but he does not use words (unlike Steve McGarrett/Chin Ho Kelly/Kono Kalakaua/Kamekona), such as 'brah', 'hoa', 'lanai', 'aloha' 'da kine', 'pakalolo' etc. _

_I have tried my best in this regard, but it has been a bit difficult: dark colours, especially dark eye-colour, don't show up well on screen And of course, that doesn't account for the fact that in Real Life, every person's eyes change colour several times a minute, depending on the amount of literal light reaching the eye, the individual's emotions, their physical level of tiredness or alertness and so on; any accurate/true-to-life novel would never contain anything else other than 400 pages of what colour a person's eyes were every twenty seconds or so. _

_The same applies to everyone else – if you have ever watched any TV shows regularly and then met or seen some of the cast in real life you will know that moment of surprised 'Huh' because the camera really does change how a person's height, weight, body posture, hair-colour, eye-colour, skin tone and voice sounds _**_appear _**_to be from what they actually _**_are_**_, as well these also being just as much affected by the person in question being ill, tired, happy, alert, etc. Not to mention of course that actors go into 'make-up' which again alters the colour of their eyes, skin-tone, etc. _

**_Credit/shout-out/blame-placement_: **_This story has been posted to for 'The Hobbet' who asked if I'd written any Sherlock fan-fiction…Yes, in a word. _

**Holmesian Logic**

**Part I**

**Chapter 1**

"Been banished, have you, Doc?"

The avuncular comment, with a hint of smugness, didn't make him splutter as he swallowed a hot gulp of tea – he'd had NCOs whose favourite method of testing your 'steel and _sangfroid_' had been to silently glide up behind some poor sod just as he had taken a mouthful of food/drink and then bark out: "_'Smith you 'orrible little excuse for an 'uman bean!'_" at which point the hapless 'Smith' would end up spraying food/drink/spit all over his unimpressed comrades and possibly even superior officer(s) while he hacked and choked and spluttered and babbled and scrabbled to his feet trying to salute and come to attention all at the same time.

But he'd been through the meat grinder that was _military_ _medical_ college, and so such stunts as this one were as candy floss to a half-brick in comparison. So as Greg Lestrade pulled out the chair the other side of the table, lifting it slightly so the metal legs didn't scrape over the lino, and sat down, he corrected mildly, "Not _officially_, no. Mrs Rabani, could I have another mug here, please, and a fresh pot of tea, thanks."

Mrs Rabani beamed at him as she proffered a plain white and blue-rimmed mug suspiciously similar to the old British Rail tea-room mugs (and which the canny lady had probably got as a job lot sometime back in the '80s), and hurried off to brew yet more tea.

By the time he'd finished his first ever breakfast and morning cuppa in this café, he had learned she and her husband had immigrated here from India in 1972; they'd worked a 100 hour week to ensure all their children had a public school and then university education. She had learned he was a doctor, and single. She liked doctors, and particularly single male doctors, because her youngest was a spinster paediatrician; all her children were medical professionals of one type or another, although possibly because they hadn't dared do otherwise.

Greg Lestrade took the mug with the due reverence of a Mediaeval pilgrim to the Holy Land touching a piece of the True Cross, and poured himself the last of the current pot of tea, swatting in four lumps of sugar and glugging milk from the jug, stirring it like he was whisking batter mix before he leaned back and took a big gulp, closing his eyes momentarily in sensory bliss before opening them and raising his mug slightly in ironic salute. "But still in a snit that the _sidekick _cracked the case and not the great Consulting Detective, if you're in here, all on your Sweeny Todd?"

Mrs Rabani arrived with a fresh pot of the ambrosia of the gods, at least what constituted it at this hour of the morning by anyone not alcohol-dependent. He _was _in fact open to coffee as a breakfast beverage, even what passed for it as served by a hungover/uninterested/the-world-owes-me-adulation- for-merely-existing teenage Uni' student 'barista'.

And yes, even _mocha lattes_ in their place in his world, but nothing beat the great British morning cuppa, especially not at _'Aaagh! o'clock'_, that always _special_ time of the morning when, having been aggravated by Sherlock for most of the night, he was tired, tetchy and most tempted to take up Mike Stamford on his occasional suggestions of a permanent position at Bart's either as a lecturer or surgical research fellow… He handed over a fiver to Mrs R., with a keep-the-change quick shake of his head; she had no idea how good it felt to be able to do that again without having to worry whether doing so would precipitate a heat or eat decision for his finances.

Greg made a move towards his own coat pocket but he shook his head again and a man who really _was _one of the Met's finest raised his mug in another salute before drinking more tea, clearly savouring each swallow like a man lost in a desert plunging into an oasis and finding the stuff was vintage champagne to boot.

"Not about me solving the case…as such…more…because I _didn't _have to _solve _anything. No observation, no deduction, no detection. All I did was take just one deep breath and game over, case solved, scumbag in jail. It…offends his sense of the appropriate, I think."

"Did he realise _how_ you were able to know with a single sniff or has he gone straight into the sulks?" Greg asked perceptively - but quietly, almost gently.

Ah yes, there was nothing obtuse or stupid about Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade of Scotland Yard. If he hadn't had the shrewdness – and the integrity – to eschew politicking and instead keep utilising Sherlock Holmes' talents to help innocent, vulnerable people these past few years, Greg Lestrade would have been getting close to being Commissioner of the Met on his own merits by now.

And on top of that wasn't there the _very _suggestive fact that Gregory Lestrade, though ostensibly on a busman's holiday when Mycroft had sent him to Baskerville to ride herd on Sherlock, had had no problems making like the cavalry with a _handgun_ to help save poor Henry Knight at Dewer's Hollow when Sherlock had finally had the sense to call in reinforcements? His own experience had shown him just how lucky he'd been to get to keep his Browning, so either the Met now allowed a lot more officers further down the food chain than SO19 to go around town tooled up like they were in an episode of _The Professionals_, or else there was more to Greg Lestrade than met the eye…

And he knew which answer tick-box he would pick for those options. For example, it was absolutely ludicrous to entertain the notion that _Mycroft Holmes_ had just accepted the ongoing alliance between his precocious teenage brother and this 'DI Lestrade' of the Met without making forensically 'sure', probably to the sub-atomic level, about Gregory Lestrade.

Back when Sherlock had been a precocious _enfant terrible_ skipping free from the dreaming spires of Oxford, resolutely ignoring his elder brother's existence and setting up his own website and self-invented career as a Consulting Detective, he himself had been in Afghanistan. _The Science of Deduction _had held its own in the _niche _market of 'online oddballs', but it wouldn't have taken more than a few weeks for the 'Net _cognoscenti_ back home here in Blighty to boost the newcomer's provocative profile and for Sherlock to come to the notice of some in the thin blue line.

He would have given a great deal to have seen footage – or at least read the report – of when and how Sherlock and Greg had first crossed paths and, hopefully only metaphorically, swords. He certainly had no doubt that Lestrade had been the one to take the initiative and have the humility to keep returning to a useful resource that 99 percent of his police colleagues would just have ignored out of personal egotism no matter how much faster or more accurately Sherlock blitzed the cases for them – DI Anderson and Sally Donovan being classic examples of that mindset.

Mycroft, in turn, initially able to ignore his younger brother's 'dabbling', certainly wouldn't have continued to do so when someone – the Met Commissioner, perhaps, or even higher up – the Home Sec, even? – had been made aware of '_some blithering DI setting the Met up to be made a fool of – always on the phone or in consultation with some shady online guru about murder cases – name of Sherlock Holmes, ever heard of him, M? M?' _No indeed, in post-Dunblane Britain which had ripped up historic gun laws and re-legislated a mess so badly written that the British Olympic and Commonwealth Pistol Shooting Teams could only legally practise _abroad_ and the only people with easy access to handguns were _criminals_, Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade hadn't just 'happened' to have a _handgun_ handy on his holidays.

Now, he shrugged to convey both an answer in the negative and a silent request that Lestrade _not_ bring this subject up in front of Sherlock.

Thing was, Sherlock 'knew' he'd been a serving soldier in Afghanistan in the same way he himself had known human anatomy by memorising Dad's textbooks when he was twelve – all theory, no practical – knowledge, but without _understanding_. If Sherlock had possessed _that_ he'd never have rabbit-punched him out of left field in that lunatic plan to get himself invited into Irene Adler's house as a just-mugged vicar.

Beheaded by terrorists, poor cow…not that he quite believed it. In fact, he wouldn't believe _The Woman_ was really dead until he throttled her himself _and _got rid of the body. But still, Sherlock wouldn't have got in his face about that 'surprise punch' and not-in-a-good-office-party-way if the idiot had had any _real _inkling of what the 'sidekick' kept tamped down, way, way down in the dark of his soul. Sherlock had caught him off guard in that and he couldn't allow that to happen again…he might not be able to stop himself in time from…_hurting_…someone…because experience was the harshest of teachers, but a very, very good one…

"Sherlock would have got it himself, in another five seconds. New build house, but industrial paint used to decorate just one interior room? Using a bad smell to hide a worse one was…"

"Taliban S.O.P?"

He gave one sharp affirmative nod, taking a drink of his tea; his mind flashing back instantly in vignette memory-moments of one, two – a dozen or more – such encounters; the Taleban terrorists had often killed animals – or murdered people – and rigged the corpses with IEDs to detonate when touched, but as a hot country with rapid putrefaction of dead organic matter they'd resorted to dousing the corpse with some pungent scent because the good guys – anyone in-country who was Western and Christian, though political correctness zealots would have him skinned alive if he ever let that slip out - had _very _quickly learned to do nothing without sucking up air as if a human vacuum cleaner and sniffing like they were auditioning to make like a foxhound at a hunt meet…

_The taxi pulled around in front of Amberley Crescent, a graceful curving crescent of new build houses in Belgravia – pretentiously built to look exactly like Regency townhouses as favoured by the capital's aristocrats about town circa 1820; nowhere near the much-needed new social housing the politicians were always going on about. Happily, though, Amberley Crescent was a good few streets away from the former residence of a purportedly now-deceased dominatrix._

_The Three Anti-Musketeers were waiting for them as Sherlock bounded out of the cab like a Springer Spaniel puppy without a backward glance, taking it as read that his unglorified sidekick would pay the fare and make sure the cabbie waited. _

_Lestrade, impatient and irritated; Inspector Dimmock, alert and interested, and to date, most recent member of the Sherlock Holmes' fan-club after that business with the Tong and the millennium old hairpin gave his career a kick-start and the Speckled Blonde case added a further boost – Detective Inspector rank like Lestrade loomed on the horizon for the far from dim Dimmock. And finally Sergeant Sally Donovan, contemptuous disdain as clear as neon across her face, although admittedly Sherlock hadn't helped his cause by pointing out in front of the world's best worst gossipers – i.e., London's coppers – that she had been mistress to the adulterous, antagonistic Anderson, the Met's CSI wunderkind. He wondered if that little sordid affair was still going on. _

_Sherlock was practically bouncing in his boots like an overgrown Tigger in Lestrade's wake as the DI moved towards No.15 Amberley Crescent and opened the door; he trotted in at the back with Dimmock and Donovan – perfect name for a double-act as ever there was – drawing in a deep and deeply annoyed breath of exasperation at it costing a twenty note just to guarantee the cabbie didn't suddenly remember an urgent fare across town and –_

_And the smell grabbed his tonsils and twisted like a Baghdad hooker demanding payment; the cream emulsion smelled as if it was designed to whitewash the inside of a cow barn, not a house._

"_He killed them."_

"_What?" Lestrade turned sharply._

_The words had bypassed his better judgement, but he knew with absolute certainty and could not prevent himself finishing his unintended utterance, "Lewisham, the owner; Josie Barker and Ray Ernest – they're both dead. From the stench of that paint in…" he inhaled deeply, then again, "…the downstairs front dining room… I'd say that's where Lewisham hid the parts after he dismembered the corpses."_

"_Dismembered them!?"_

_Donovan's disgusted exclamation was fainter than in reality because for a moment his hearing was dimmed as in his mind's eye he was back in any one of several interchangeable Afghani villages, with the powerful scent of exotic blooms bringing a microsecond of pleasure to the eyes and nose until you snapped back into it as to why they'd been planted and what that sickly sweet scent was intended to disguise._

_Greg Lestrade was looking into the offending room with a sort of violent wistfulness, as if contemplating taking a sledgehammer to the walls himself. "Lewisham warned me about the paint – said he'd caught the decorators using knocked off industrial paint instead of proper house-paint and he'd fired them." Lestrade's voice tone changed as he obviously quoted Lewisham, "'Luckily I caught them when they'd only done one room, and I'm away on business for the next six weeks, so the place will be tolerable when I get back.'" _

"_No," Sherlock vetoed instantly, "the last house on this crescent is still under construction, never mind there being internal decorators reaching No.15 already? So Lewisham did that paint job himself and," he whipped out his Smart Phone and scrolled as he muttered, "from that angle that room gets most of the sun, and we're forecast a heat-wave so…he was hoping for complete decomposition in that period to reduce the smell…no that doesn't…"_

"_Sealant," Dimmock suggested suddenly, "like a clay oven; or one of those things you can buy for your back garden…"_

"_Chimera!" Donovan declared,_

"_No, Chiminea," corrected Sherlock without looking up from his phone and so missing the venomous glare – or maybe it simply bounced off him unnoticed._

_Possibly to make it so he didn't have to arrest his own duty sergeant for attempted murder – bludgeoning of a conceited know it all – Lestrade interjected as if neither had spoken, "…Industrial paint – thicker, more waterproof than normal paint, and the new brick would be fairly watertight too. Put the…pieces in the cavity between the outer wall and the interior wall, coat the interior wall with a nice, thick industrial sealant and leave for six weeks; the temperature would be too high and too dry for spores and vermin so the corpses wouldn't rot –"_

"_They'd dehydrate, mummify," Sherlock jumped in, "of course – the olfactory variation on 'hiding in plain sight': just use one strong odour to cover another whilst the whiffy fresh meat dried into jerky. When Lewisham came back his victims would be the consistency of old leather and look nothing like a hacked up body. Strip back the paint and redecorate in a nice Everyman magnolia and then dispose of Barker and Ernest one chop at a time just by using his dustbin. "_

"Would you really have wanted it to turn into one of _Sherlock's_ type of cases?" He challenged, and nodded at Lestrade's suit, which was so creased he had clearly been wearing it since yesterday, "When you were up to your eyes in this lot?"

Sherlock wasn't the only one who could do observant – Lestrade looked somehow both exhausted and exhilarated – he recognised the oxymoronic expression from countless mirrors in Afghanistan and before that Iraq and before that Sarajevo and before that Belfast and before that…other places. When you were up to your neck in muck and bullets but you didn't _care_ because you were winning and winning spectacularly.

Besides, any first year Med student could – and should – be able to see past the _faux _ruddy bloom of Lestrade's cheeks and the pseudo-sparkle of his eyes, forged by adrenaline saturated blood, and instead notice the underlying grey pallor of utter weariness and the sclerotic eyeball redness of a bloke who'd gone a good thirty hours _sans _sleep. The impression wasn't helped by the fact that the deep bronze beach-holiday-in-Barbados tan that had made Greg so acutely out of place in the middle of the bleakly beautiful British chill-fest that was Dartmoor (usual temperature: _we passed absolute zero a half-hour back_) had now faded to a sallow off-yellow hue, reminiscent of jaundice or a fading bruise.

"True. I wouldn't have been able to wrap up John Oldacre in a big red bow for the Criminals' Protection Service – at least not this fast, if I'd had to divide my time between Blackheath and Sherlock's latest _contremps_."

"Congrats. So, are we likely to hear those three little words soon?"

"Eh?" Lestrade, divorced with children, looked confused and slightly wary.

"Detective _Chief_ Inspector."

Lestrade finished his mug of tea, and deflected, "Above my pay grade, mate, but…it's a good result though; I'm well pleased."

"Oh. I see. Mozart."

"Eh?" Lestrade leaned forward slightly – and not just because the hard-moulded shit-brown cheap plastic chairs were hell on the back of mortal man after the first thirty seconds – looking as if he were considering whether to forcibly check if John had been lacing his tea with whisky.

"Leopold Mozart was one of the most gifted and respected musician-composers in 17th Century Austria. He and his wife's only surviving child, Maria, was a gifted pianist – a child prodigy, fêted in Vienna and Salzburg and all the aristocratic salons by the time she was six."

"Right," Lestrade bit his lip, clearly wondering whether he should arrest John on suspicion of being under the influence of some illegal herbage, or call an ambulance.

"Which was the year when Leopold's wife had a little baby boy they named Wolfgang, the only other of their seven children to survive infancy after Maria. When he was three he composed his first concerto."

"Yeah, that Mozart, _The Magic Flute_, et cetera. I have an 'A' Level in Music, Dr Watson."

"Exactly," he countered. "After little Wolfgang started wowing the crowds, by the time he was ten everyone had forgotten his less showy but not less talented older sister. He was the sun – big bright and glowing – to her moon – smaller, paler, cooler – but this third rock of ours would be well stuffed without the moon."

He paused to take a swig of his tea, having no doubt Lestrade got the analogy, but said it anyway, "Would I be very far out if I were to suggest that your bosses," he doubted if the very intelligent, very capable, very authoritative Greg Lestrade had any _superiors _at New Scotland Yard, "have got themselves so used to your prudent use of the resource that is Sherlock Holmes that they've forgotten how nothing but _your_ own talent was fast-tracking you up through the ranks a few years back when Sherlock Holmes was still an acne-addled _enfant terrible_ nobody had ever heard of getting himself transferred to Oxford one step ahead of Dublin Trinity slinging him out by the scruff of that flash greatcoat he wears?"

"Should I start singing, _The Hills Are Alive with the sound of Music_?" Lestrade raised his mug in oblique acknowledgement of the accuracy of this supposition.

"I'd rather you didn't, people talk enough about the supposed 'real nature' of mine and Sherlock's relationship – not that any exists outside Mind Your Own Damn Business - as it is without it getting around that John Watson likes _show tunes _as well." He'd already had Mike Stamford, with what the bloke obviously fondly imagined was subtlety, asking oblique questions on the subject – mind you, that infernal, apparently perpetually circulating photograph didn't help – that paparazzi double head shot of him and Sherlock coming out of the theatre back door in those ridiculous excuses for headgear – he'd never worn a flat cap in his life and that deerstalker Sherlock had grabbed just _had _to combine with that swirling greatcoat to do wonders for those already impressive cheekbones, hadn't it…Lestrade, no doubt by well-practiced design, hadn't been captured in-shot at all and now the blasted snap was the only one the news media – in print or online – ever seemed to use.

He wasn't surprised by Lestrade's cagey response though; from his own decade plus change of medico-military service dealing with the fallout from politicians' grandstanding and commanding officers more interested in furthering their own careers and covering their own backsides, he could well imagine what Greg Lestrade's working life had been like living through what more than one bloke in their unit - and plenty more regiments besides - had sarcastically called 'The Blair Witch Project Years' – what with Ian at the Met and Tony in Downing Street, anyone who still believed in being a _real _copper must have had a hairy time of it during the last fifteen years.

"Well, I haven't got until tomorrow to write up all the reports on this," Lestrade shoved back his chair and stood up, "thanks for the cuppa char – I wonder if there's any chance of getting Mrs R. to take over our canteen?"

He clucked his tongue, "You mean _in-house catering service_. All those Politically Correct Marxist Liberal work place activists spend hours thinking up management jargon and here you are throwing around wholesale Plain English words like 'canteen'…the wrong senior 'artificer' at the Met overhears that and it won't be 'Lestrade you're up for DCI' but 'Lestrade, it's a BME diversity awareness course for you.'"

"They'll never take me alive," Lestrade's lip curled and he sounded, somewhat worryingly, like he _meant it_.

"_I__llegitimi non carborundum_," he raised his mug in toast as Lestrade wove his way out around the tables, back out into the early morning fray, the eternal din of London hustle and bustle peaking momentarily until the café door closed.

_Continued in Chapter 2…_

© 2012, The Cat's Whiskers

All rights reserved

**Author's Notes:**

The title of this story is a play on the term "Empsonian Logic" coined in respect of my distant cousin, Sir William Empson, by _The Times _newspaper. William Empson (1906-1984) was one of the leading British poets and literary authors of the early 20th Century; his practice of 'close reading' literary texts – the method of intensively examining and producing a commentary on only a brief passage of text or a couple of lines of verse – and his willingness to consider interpretations not hidebound or deferential to current orthodoxies, led to the coining of the term Empsonian Logic in reference to his sometimes radical and innovative interpretations of Classic literary texts such as Milton and Shakespeare.

The Shorter English Dictionary defines: "_Adjective: Resembling or characteristic of the logic of Sir William Empson (1906-84) English poet & critic"_ and quotes _The Times_ Literary Supplement, "_Sonnets marked by a somewhat Empsonian logic". _His most famous work was _Seven Types of Ambiguity _(1930). The polymath Jonathan Bate stated that Empson was one of the three greatest British literary critics of the past three hundred years, '_not least because they are the funniest.'_

Amberley Court, Josie Barker, Ray Ernest and Lewisham are all references to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's _Sherlock Holmes _short story, _The Adventure of the Retired Colourman_, published in 1926 in _The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes_ and set c.1898 (according to Sherlockian scholar William S. Baring-Gould). In SACD's story, Josiah Amberley, who comes from Lewisham, hires Holmes to look into the disappearance of his wife and their neighbour, Dr Ray Ernest. In the story, the killer uses strong paint to disguise a smell betraying the murder.

Greg Lestrade's visit to Blackheath and his arrest of John Oldacre are taken from _the Adventure of the Norwood Builder _published in 1903 and set in c.1894, in _The Return of Sherlock Holmes_ anthology. John Oldacre as I have used it is a conflation of Holmes' client, the '_unhappy John Hector McFarlane_' a lawyer from Blackheath, accused of murdering his client Jonas Oldacre. The story heavily features Inspector Lestrade, who for most of the story appears to be on the right track in suspecting McFarlane is guilty. Blackheath was again used in _The Adventure of the Retired Colourman_.

NCOs – Non-Commissioned Officers, referred to as an 'En-See-Oh' (plural 'En-See-Ohz') in the UK and non-com/non-comz in the USA are military men of officer rank who have achieved the officer rank by promotion through the enlisted ranks (starting out in the mailroom/office tea-boy/apprentice level and working their way up through the 'company' to Managing Director or Vice-CEO in civilian equivalency).

Many officers in military services based on the historical British model/in the English-speaking world are _commissioned_; that is they enter military service at officer level often as a Graduate from a civilian university or a military _officer candidate school _(also college or university despite the designation of school) or in a career change moving in from a non-military civilian career or occupation to a military one. _Commissioned officers_ are therefore likely to range from late 20s to late 30s or even around 40 years of age in some instances rather than be under age 25 years.

This is different from joining up at 'entry level' and working their way up through the ranks as an NCO does; since many of those who rise to become NCO rank are 'career military' (they have made that branch of the military their career choice) they often join that military service immediately after completing statutory education (last year of secondary school or high school) usually about the age of sixteen to eighteen years. This means, ironically, that an NCO and a commissioned officer can attain that officer rank at a similar age to each other, even though they have taken different routes to get there.

Traditionally in the British Armed Forces, 'NCOs' command immense respect and affection and are viewed as the 'backbone' of regimental discipline and heroism. Traditionally the NCO was responsible for discipline and drilling the enlisted men to achieve smartness and cohesion on parade and in combat, which in times past meant NCOs were noted for having voices that whilst not necessarily 'shouting' could be heard over considerable distance.

Some of the more 'colourful' NCOs could be quite well-known outside military life. Possibly the most famous was Regimental Sergeant Major Ronald Brittain, MBE (1899-1981) whom it was claimed had the loudest voice in HM Army. He featured in many British propaganda/training films of World War II and after statutory retirement from the British Army his voice training meant he was able to do a lot of voice-overs for radio TV advertisements and some acting, usually playing a Sergeant Major in cameo roles; his carrying voice and impressive lung power aided by being lucky enough to be born not only with good musculature but an imposing six feet three inches of height.

As a training officer at Sandhurst, he was credited with popularising the maxim of NCOs, '_you 'orrible little man!'_ no matter that the Sandhurst cadets he terrified with one bellow (his nickname being, appropriately _The _Voice) were often princes and titled sons – one of the cadets was the greatly respected King Hussein of Jordan, who had acceded the throne at 16 and who, following Brittain's death, recalled (with great fondness) being bellowed at by RSM Brittain as '_you 'orrible little monarch!'_

Such was the power of Brittain's voice that it is claimed that on one occasion, a regiment of soldiers on parade heard the RSM's order to '_Ten-Hut!_' and snapped to attention even though they couldn't _see_ anyone present – and the actual RSM who hadn't spoken had to tell them that they had actually heard RSM Brittain who was 'two miles away' at the time. Welsh actor Windsor Davies (b.1930-) based his portrayal of Battery Sergeant Major 'Shut Up!' Williams on RSM Brittain for the 1974-1981 British sitcom, _It Ain't Half Hot Mum!_

The current most famous 'RSM' is (deep breath) WO1 William D. G. 'Billy' Mott OBE MVO of the Welsh Guards, who is now the GSM – Garrison Sergeant Major of the Household Cavalry stationed at Buckingham Palace, the London residence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. WO1 is Warrant Officer 1st Class, OBE is Order of the British Empire and MVO is Member of the Victorian Order. He is 'Her Majesty's Ceremonial Warrant Officer'. More commonly known by wags in the Household Cavalry as 'God's unofficial representative on Earth!', 'Billy' Mott is claimed to be the new holder of the unofficial title of having the loudest voice in the British Army. He was the Queen's 'military point man' deeply involved in planning the ceremonial aspects of the funeral of H.M. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the current Queen's Golden Jubilee State Procession in 2002. Mott also organises the repatriation ceremonies for those killed in action in her H.M. Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He and his brother Major Nicholas Mott of the Welsh Guards were two of the eight pallbearers at the funeral of Lady Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first and so far only female Prime Minister, in April 2013.

The NCOs – or Sergeant Majors – were also central to the supposed dry wit of the enlisted 'lion' when it came to the 'donkey' officers, with exchanges such as those below, taken from _From Aldershot to Aden: Tales from the Conscripts 1946-1962 _by Colin Schindler:

NCO, usually SM or RSM: _Did you shave this morning, Private?_

Private: _Sah! _(i.e., 'yes')

NCO: _and was there a blade in the razor!?_

Private: _Sah!_

NCO: _Well next time stand in the same bloody room as it!_

Or this:

NCO:_ And what were you before you joined the [Army, Navy, Air Force]_?

Cadet: _Happy, Sar'nt Major!_

Candy floss (UK) is Cotton Candy (USA)

Lino is 'linoleum' – a floor covering made from composite materials rather than actual wood, slate or stone – solidified plant or tree oil or ground up tree bark 'dust', mixed with mineral 'fillers' such as calcium carbonate and pasted on a piece of canvas or burlap sacking – it is very easy to add coloured dyes and pigments to these composites to create patterns and pictures. The best quality linoleum floors are very durable and flexible and can be used in buildings where more rigid flooring like slate or stone or ceramic tiles would crack or be unsuitable. It was invented by Frederick Walton (1834-1928) in 1855, and named by him as _Linoleum_ which he invented by merging the Latin words -_inum_ ("flax") and -_oleum_ ("oil").

Part of the usefulness of linoleum was that Walton could make difference 'gauges' of flooring – thicker densities for heavy duty use in public buildings like colleges, hospitals, etc., and thinner types for use in the home or where there would not be a lot of heavy foot traffic. Linoleum was also much lighter, cheaper and easier to 'lay' than actual wood or slate/stone and easier to clean so rapidly became popular with the military, especially the British and American Navies who used it in place of wooden decks. He also invented a way to create decorative patterns and even 'embossed' linoleum, where a crest, or badge of office (like the Presidential Seal in the Oval Office carpet) could be created.

On 13th March 1996, paedophile Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 primary school children and their teacher at a school in Dunblane, Scotland. The atrocity sparked a popular media campaign against what was perceived to be the way Britain's burgeoning 'gun culture' was aping that of the United States where the 'right to bear arms' was enshrined in the Constitution of civil rights as the Second Amendment.

Although it rapidly became clear that Hamilton had obtained his pistols (handguns) because existing gun laws had not been properly enforced, rather than inadequate gun legislation, John Major's Government destroyed the UK's historic gun-ownership rights with an outright ban on owning handguns by private citizens. This rushed legislation was so badly worded that the British Commonwealth and Olympic Games Pistol Shooting Teams – regular gold medallists – were not permitted to own or fire a single bullet to train for competitions even in secure Gun Clubs. Competitors had to bear the cost of travelling to Switzerland, the biggest non-UK competitive pistol shooting country, or else if remaining in the UK to 'practise' with 'air pistols' that were described as 'walking around carrying a feather in each hand to prepare for having to carry an anvil in your arms'.

In the UK newspaper _The Daily Telegraph _edition of 28th December 2001, a four-times Commonwealth Games gold medallist Pistol Shooter, RAF officer Michael Gault, and a police officer Colin Greenwood, both concurred and averred that the 'knee-jerk' legislation had been an abject failure, supported by crime statistics evidence as reported in the same newspaper on 11th January 2001 and 17th July 2001 which demonstrated that gun crime – with the use of _illegally owned handguns _predominating – had risen significantly since the post-Dunblane ban of 1996.

In 1998, 18 months after the handgun ban became law, and a year after coming to power as New Labour, the incoming Blair Government signed into law the Human Rights Act; a noble concept and admirable in theory, in practice the HRA was hijacked by Marxist Liberal vested interests and utilised by the burgeoning profiteering Legal Aid 'industry' amongst British lawyers, which effectively eviscerated the British Criminal Justice system and rendered it ineffectual by giving all the rights and power to criminals and leaving victims and law-abiding citizens to fend for themselves.

The combination of the ban on private citizens owning handguns and the HR Act meant that trafficking in illegal handguns spiralled upwards as criminals gleefully realised that law-abiding citizens had no legal way to own a handgun with which to defend their lives or their property and that even if they were caught, their prison 'sentence' would be derisory and served in an institution converted to have more in common with a luxury hotel than a place of penal servitude as prisons used to be like in the TV show _Porridge_.

Police officer Colin Greenwood stated that most police will admit off the record that handguns have never been cheaper or easier to obtain illegally since the post-Dunblane ban was enacted and that police forces have moved to a 'philosophical opposition' even to shotgun ownership with many farmers and sportsmen waiting months for certificates, whilst at the same time the police and government have done absolutely nothing to try and halt or drastically reduce the trafficking in illegal handguns – it is always easier, cheaper and faster to broad-spectrum punish the law-abiding citizenry than spend the effort, money and time necessary to constantly and consistently harass and prosecute illegal handgun trafficking. According to Colin Greenwood, gun crime statistics show that if British gun laws are designed to protect the law-abiding public majority from gun crime they are an 'utter failure', but if they are a deliberate secret Government policy of 'disarming law-abiding people for unclear motives, they can be said to be working well'.

One anonymous commentator on the gradually increasing prevalence of guns used in violent crimes, particularly amongst urban black youth immigrants from Second and Third World countries in black-on-black drug, human trafficking and gang crimes, claimed that the only real restraint against British criminals running amok with no fear of reprisals or that their law-abiding victims could defend themselves was, '_the long-standing culture amongst native Britons – by which I mean white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christian heterosexual nuclear families with married parents not on welfare, direct descents of the Celts and Vikings, so despised by the Hard Left – that gun-use is actually __**cowardly**__. We Brits like our violence up close and visceral – the crunch of knuckles to nose, the thwack of bat or blade against flesh, the spurt of bright blood and the mouth full of teeth and blood. One American colleague on a visit to the UK pointed out dryly that 'only in Britain is the guy who stands ten feet away and pulls a gun considered a wimpy wussy-pussy nancy nonce too weak and useless to flick a switchblade or knuckledusters and get stuck into the melee like a real man.' At this point, he's still right, but what should make us lie awake at night in a cold fugue sweat is the knowledge of what is likely to happen when the current feral underclass of white British kids grow up having spent their early lives absorbing a constant diet of violent American TV shows glorifying guns and aping the predominantly black immigrant African despot/Muslim fanatic gun culture of the street gangs that they now aspire to join and rule. Twenty years from now, it'll be a whole new crime scene, and having comprehensively made sure Britain's private citizens can't protect themselves or their families, the police and the Government have all but guaranteed a bloodbath.'_

Either or both Taleban and Taliban are correct to describe the Afghani Muslim fundamentalist politico-religious group that ruled the country from September 1996 to December 2001.

Wolfgang Mozart's older sister was a child prodigy in her own right until eclipsed by her toddler brother. One researcher pointed out that scientists now know babies in the womb can hear sounds and recognise familiar repeated sounds, like their parents' voices; because of the musical nature of Leopold and his daughter's work, from the moment of conception, Wolfgang would have heard their music over and over again as they practised for public performances; Mozart was literally born already having learned many compositions, so his musical 'genius' was as much caused by Leopold and 'Nannerl' (his lifelong nicknamed for his sister) as with any independent creativity he possessed.

BME – in British Politically Correct speak this stands for 'black and ethnic minority'.

Ian Blair was the Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police at the same time that Tony Blair was Prime Minister – as far is as known the two men are not related to each other.

_Illegitimi non carborundum _also known as _nil illegitimum carborundum _is a pseudo-Latin aphorism that translates as '_don't let the bastards grind you down_'. According to Wikipedia, lexicographer Eric Partridge (1894-1979) credited it to British Army Intelligence early in World War II (1941) at which point the phrase was adopted by US Army General Joseph 'Vinegar' Stillwell (1883-1946) as his personal motto during the War. Sometime during the 1940s it also became popular at the US Ivy League University Harvard, and by 1953 had been incorporated as the new first and third lines of the updated first verse of the 'unofficial' song, _Ten Thousand Men of Harvard_, a 'fight song' of the Harvard Marching Band, which had originally been written in 1914 by a student named Putnam:

_Illegitimum non carborundum;_

_Domine salvum fac._

_Illegitimum non carborundum;_

_Domine salvum fac._

_Gaudeamus igitur!_

_Veritas non sequitur?_

It was further re-popularized in the American public's imagination ten years after that in 1964 when it was used by US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in his election campaign. Perhaps because of that, although originating with the British Army, it has become popular as a real-life motto by several different United States' military units/services, as well as some civilian enterprises amongst others:

Echo Company, 1st Regiment, US Corps of Cadets: Foxtrot Company, 2nd Regiment, United States Corps of Cadets; the submarine _USS Tunny_; the University of Idaho Navy ROTC Drill Team; the USAF 490th 'Farsiders' Missile Squadron, Montana; 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), Washington State.

In US civilian life it is the motto of two newspapers in Alaska, the _Nome Nugget _and _Whitehorse Star_ and the American newspaper comic strip _Odd Bodkins_. It is also the 'unofficial' motto of the US Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (university).

In the RAF it is the motto of the Nimrod Line Squadron


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer and etc.:**__ See Chapter 1_

_NB – _Yes there are a lot of Author's Notes; I am aware that Sherlock is very British based and I hope that the notes make things clearer (!) for non-British readers to understand the context of who is doing what and why. I also realise I forgot one from Chapter 1: 'Sweeney Todd' is Cockney Rhyming Slang for 'on your own'.

For 'The Hobbet'

**Holmesian Logic**

**Part I**

**Chapter 2**

"Thanks, Mrs R." he nodded and got up himself after Lestrade left; Mrs R. would never be so rude as to start clearing away his table until he'd left, but she needed the space and the crockery.

The 'Great British' Olympics construction crew that had been going at it round the corner for the past three weeks – and which ostensibly started work at six o'clock every morning – would soon be piling in for their 'Great British' full English Breakfast; Mrs R. needed all her equipment and attention to focus on the horde of Poles, Latvians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Czechs and Slavs trying to communicate their breakfast orders to a woman whose mother tongue was Gujarati.

Yesterday one of the heavy-booted, yellow 'hi-viz' jacket clad lads, a cheerful looking blond in his early twenties, had actually wished him good morning in a genuine _Sarf Lund'n'r _'Del Boy Trotter'accent and he'd nearly dropped his tea mug in shock. A few minutes' general chit-chat with the youth who was indeed one of the barely handful of local native English labourers across the entire Olympics construction 'circus' had demonstrated that the kid was wasted in construction. The poor kid had been one of the millions of poor-but-bright utterly failed by the State Comprehensive system that amounted to indoctrination and crowd control rather than education and been skipping school 'navvying' for cash-in-hand since he was fourteen - the younger man had picked up a fluency across several of the most popular immigrant languages that would have been the envy of top UN translators – he confided it was how he regularly 'got jobs' that in practical reality were only open to Poles and Eastern Europeans, and he got _'an 'igher whack, mate'_ as he usually translated between the various nationalities on a building site without having to put in a lot of _''eavy work once they twig I can talk the lingo to everyone else, like'_.

He drew in a deep breath of acrid exhaust fumes and damp from last night's rain, mingled with burned rubber, a discarded takeaway, aerosol spray and sundry other whiffs. Before the split his former sister-in-law Clara had wondered why Harry had vetoed resettling somewhere twee and bucolic like the Cotswolds or Berkshire – as far as Londoners were concerned, real air had a distinctive tang as strong as 1970s 'aftershave', and occasionally the consistency of a casserole. _The air's too thin, anywhere else_.

Speaking of thin, Sherlock's non-existent 'patience' would be worn to a nub if he didn't sort out Mrs Humphrey and get back within the hour. Most of the time he felt just like Man Friday to Robinson Crusoe – only without the advantages that the real MF had had of living on a sun-drenched paradise tropical island abounding with ready-to-hand juicy fruit, crystalline pools and a small, helpful tribe of largely nubile young lovelies all happy to make him look good to the beardo-weirdo hapless, clueless Crusoe –

Something small, round and very hard was jabbed into the base of his spine as a voice hissed into his ear from behind, "Consorting with the enemy, hey? Court martial offence; still punished with death by firing squad, Watson."

"That's _Captain_ Watson to you." He turned towards the mouth of the alley and faced the loiterer so the small but impressive .32 calibre Smith & Wesson was pressed lightly against his stomach not his spine; this gunman might shoot him in the back, but would never look his victims in the face to do so. "What are you doing here, Seb?"

"Ah, 'Captain, My Captain'," 'Seb' taunted, showing a lot of expensively pearlescent white teeth in what some might have mistaken for a smile as the gun swiftly disappeared into the pocket of his overcoat. "Last I checked, I was _Major _Moran to _you_. And last I also checked the silly sheeple still believe this is a free country so why shouldn't I look up an old Fusilier?"

"No, I mean, what are you doing here?" he spread his palms to indicate the grey, grim day in London generally, not this particular spot of it. "Why aren't you in the Penthouse Suite at the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai or Monte Carlo? You mercenaries earned a fortune in Iraq. That watch is Piaget – and platinum – that suit you're wearing is handmade tailored-to-measure Singapore silk and that overcoat is pure Peruvian vicuña wool which retails at three thousand pounds per square yard, and I haven't counted your shoes, that exorbitantly expensive aftershave – you were ripped off there, by the way – and whatever 'product' you slathered all over your hair this morning…and which I would advise you not to light a cigarette anywhere near."

The mentioned hair was combed back, and the hue was a uniformly 'Bourneville' Dark Chocolate brown all over, unlike natural hair colour which was a myriad different shades of the general colour, meaning it was either dyed or the gel absorbed sunlight so it was evenly one shade – _I have been hanging around with Sherlock way too long. _

Moran's dark eyes matched his hair colour, and had a superficially charming brightness, unless you were astute enough to notice that the 'emotions' were shallow, like a puddle, rather than anything life-sustaining like a pond or a lake. Again, superficially his round face looked 'wholesomely handsome', like a twenty-something Christopher Reeve or that bloke who had played Superman in the reboot movie, _Superman Returns_ – Brendan…no, Brandon Routh…or you could put him side by side with Jim Moriarty and try and spot the difference…

Now, Seb smirked at this recitation of wealth indicators, taking in the well-washed jeans, serviceable chain-store check shirt and black hip coat, where the only leather were oval patches on the shoulders and elbows, like a coal miner's jacket, "Wishing you'd been smart enough to join those of us getting something worthwhile for being in that sandpit flea-hole?"

"No," he answered honestly and his pocket began to beep. Taking out the smart phone – his smart phone now; the _Harry Watson from Clara xxx_ engraving obsolete in more ways than one, which always caused him a tiny pang of guilt because he much preferred his sister-in-law to his sister.

He saw that it wasn't Sherlock; happily, it was Mrs Humphrey advising she was _en route _back home but would be about ten minutes late; which meant if he got his arse in gear now they should arrive at the same time.

"Back at Barts, are we? I heard about your little ta-ta in Gandahar, and being invalided out," Seb made it sound as though getting severely wounded in a Taliban terrorist ambush was merely on a par with a paper cut. "Now, if you'd quit all that duty, honour, sacrifice crap to be a private contractor during the Iraqi 'Reconstruction'" he grinned as he made the ubiquitous quotation marks with his forefingers, "you'd be retired in the Maldives and you wouldn't be eking out your Army pension tutoring the next generation of Dr Shipmans all just to afford some poky bedsit in the world's dirtiest and most expensive city."

"You didn't quit, you resigned your commission a half-step ahead of being court-martialled for a laundry list of war crimes and set up a freelance mercenary op in Baghdad," he corrected, unconcerned as Seb's face darkened with an anger that made him look harsher, uglier and truer to his real nature. "And I'm not back at Bart's. This is a private client."

"I don't believe it! You, a class traitor, never! Dr Watson of Harley Street: abandoning your working-class inverted snobbery? A private GP…" Seb looked him up and down again as if double-checking him for hidden designer branding or tailor-made attire and not finding it: _nope, _sensible store-bought 'Yeoman's Outdoor' type boots, non-branded jeans well-worn from dark blue to pale/white by repeated washing, lumberjack style mass-production checked shirt also well-faded from repeated laundering and above all that shoulder-and-elbow black leather 'patched' coal-miner type jacket that was defiantly working-class in look and off the peg in manufacture, a retro-style mimicking those that had been practically _de rigueur _outer wear for any mining Union official strolling a picket line or mouthing off to a news journalist in some anti-Government rant on TV during the many discontents of the 1970s and 80s.

"I'm not in private practice. I'm a…Consulting Physician."

"What's a Consulting Physician?"

_Your guess is as good as mine, mate, I'm making the job up as I go because I've not long since invented it._ Yet another thing to lay at Sherlock Holmes' door, because the notion must have been kicking around his subconscious ever since a certain sociopath airily confided during that immortal initial cab ride that he was the world's first consulting detective because he'd invented the job.

Although, in fairness, it was the breakdown of his short-lived romance with Sarah Sawyer that had led to him unintentionally first taking up the role and then frantically improvising his own little niche at it…Gah, Sherlock Holmes was everything mum would have complained to dad about being a 'bad influence on that boy, you mark my words Harry Watson…'

_He had to force his hand to move to grasp the door handle. It wasn't that he didn't want to see Sarah. He did – especially as he was so grateful that after that whole Tong mess with the hairpin she'd actually quite serenely been willing to carry on their budding romance._

_It was nothing short of a minor miracle that she hadn't instead taken out a restraining order and an injunction on him before putting herself into therapy for the trauma of their first 'proper' date and suing him through the civil courts to cover the costs – his own brief, useless therapist had charged him two hundred quid an hour until he realised she was more out of her depth than a nun at a BSDM party…_

_And Sarah was even taking Sherlock in her stride, which meant she should be a shoe-in for some sort of medal; as he himself had no doubt unwisely snapped at Mycroft last week, when the elder Holmes brother was being particularly pesky and pushy about yet another 'national security matter' (my arse)._

_But his being a locum at her surgery was just…not working out was putting it mildly. Half the time he was falling asleep in that poky, airless consulting room because he'd been up until the small hours, chasing around after a manic fizzing Sherlock, or in the middle of some crime scene/police briefing – read sniping session – between Sherlock and Greg Lestrade or Sherlock, Lestrade and Sundry Supporting Cast like Sally Donovan, DCI Anderson, Dimmock and assorted others, such as the other two senior members of Lestrade's team - Inspector Toby Gregson and, oh yeah, Inspector 'Al' Jones. _

_Sally Donovan had given him the Jones story on the QT – Inspector Jones was as Welsh as his name, and his hatred of one S. Holmes, Consulting Detective was vitriolic – "'the freak, sensitive as ever, declaimed in front of half the Met that Al Jones' real first name wasn't Albert as he had led them to believe but Athelney.'"_

_Her explanation had cleared up poor Jones' attitude, although neither Sherlock nor Mycroft could cast the first stone in that regard – if he ever met 'mummy' Holmes, he'd challenge her on what she was thinking (or not) when she dreamed up those two monikers…and if he ever met 'daddy' he'd ask him what he was thinking (or not) letting his wife lumber their kids with names guaranteed to give them a complex, facial tics and a host of neuroses. John Hamish Watson was boring, but at least didn't cause a lifetime of psychological trauma. _

_However, he avoided Donovan where he could – her own contemptuous nickname for Sherlock and her spiteful public announcements to all and sundry that 'the freak is here…' were unprofessional and childish; even had Sherlock Holmes been a stranger to him, her attitude would have been unacceptable in its petulant unprofessionalism. These days she seemed to have tarred him with the same brush, for ignoring her warning to avoid Sherlock Holmes, which to be honest, was probably extremely wise, but then prudence had never been his virtue. He'd been reliably informed by someone in a position to know that he had no saving graces, certainly not as either a brother, or a son… _

_And the other half of the time he was just so…bored…which was way too close to Sherlock's casual disregard for others. But there was no getting away from it - he'd left his school's Upper Sixth with four 'A' Levels straight for Welbeck Military Medical College at 18 and been transferred to Bart's at 20 and deployed in various euphemistically termed 'theatres of operation' in a non-medical sense from the age of 23, doing his intercalated additional degree as a 'practical course' in the most extreme sense of the phrase. His entire experience of 'medical practice' had always been in situations that qualified for descriptors like 'frantic', 'desperate', 'gory', 'bloody', 'heroic' 'nightmarish', 'primitive', 'frontline', 'battlefield', 'violent' and 'just plain insane'. _

_An endless merry-go-round of in-growing toenails, 'migraines' where he could smell the beer breath from across the room and 'I need another sick note for me back' by some benefit scrounger who'd never lifted anything heavier than a pen to sign his dole claim didn't exactly rivet the attention of a doctor who hadn't considered it a proper medical consultation unless there was tracer fire whining about a foot overhead and the smell of cordite in a morning._

_And then there was the time wasted…talk about the En-Aitch-Ess being in a mess. Sarah had been apologetic, but this was what they got paid for by the Dee-Oh-Aitch, a.k.a. the Department of Health, or the Department of Hell; not seeing people who were sick and facilitating access to the best and newest treatments possible on the basis of illness not ability to pay, oh no, they got paid great whacking fees to target 'lifestyle' issues where they were 'incentivised' – bribed to you and me – to get as many folk on lifetime prescriptions of statins, blood pressure meds, nicotine patches and so on; it was a constant repeat-rinse-repeat cycle as they ran around metaphorically wiping the arses of people too lazy to use their common sense and eat sensibly, stop smoking, avoid drugs, drink moderately and actually work for a living, which would provide all the daily healthy exercise they'd need for a typical adult. _

_Sarah's surgery nutritionist, Chloe Reddish, earned forty-two thousand a year and spent her days toeing the political line about too much salt, too much fat, too much sugar and reciting the bollocks scam that was BMI. Outside the office, Chloe's delicatessen butcher husband cooked her a full English breakfast every morning, she had thick, rich, yellow Jersey/Guernsey milk, cream, butter and cheese imported direct from the Channel Islands, shook a ton of salt over everything she ate, had beef dripping most days for lunch, and was a tea belly who had pint mug 'with three sugars, please, John if you're mashing' every hour on the hour. She was a size ten, with flawless porcelain skin, more curves than the Nurburg Ring and was as healthy as those hideously expensive organic oxen her husband sold. _

_But brutal facts were brutal facts: He needed the locum's salary – even with Mrs Hudson's special rate, his half of the rent took ninety percent of his Army pension, so if he wanted to buy food, clothes, medicine and pay utilities he needed a second source of income that was at least a few hundred quid a week – especially as it had quickly become obvious that Sherlock Holmes' 'lucky' flatmate was also going to have to be his secretary, aide-de-camp, major-domo and general 'Fix-It' man. In short deal with all the 'trivial' matters – like buying food, making sure the phone/heating/water/broadband wasn't being routinely cut-off for non-payment and all that boring stuff that most people called the necessities of living. _

_But every day it got harder and harder to push open this door, to walk into the surgery and paste a fake, social smile on his face and grit his teeth against yelling a few hard home truths as these self-absorbed, self-obsessed, self-centred –_

The commotion over the road had actually made him jump and he'd hurried over so fast he almost fell over himself. He'd helped the amply proportioned matron who'd had a fall, and kept his promise to do a follow-up call the next day, finding his cab pulling up at Kensington & Chelsea's most exclusive address – Campden Hill Square.

But on the way _out_, he'd encountered Mrs Humphrey coming in, who'd paused and stared at his approaching figure with the arrested expression of a Victorian Duchess finding a skivvy on the main stair, taking in his working-class attire…

"_May I help you?" she'd gone to one of those schools where they taught you to talk like you had a mouthful of plums, which didn't actually bother him in the slightest._

_He'd stopped any working-class inverted-snobbery sneering at Received Pronunciation speakers about ten seconds after his unit landed in Iraq and his upper-class commanding officers were the only people who actually articulated their words properly, ensuring that their orders were understand by their men – a fairly vital survival aid in cutting through the racket of a fire-fight with Alky Ada's thugs or just after an IED explosion when your ringing ears didn't matter because you could easily lip-read that precise pronunciation that he would have happily and personally bowed and thanked the Headmasters of Eton and Harrow and St. Paul's and Dulwich and the whole caboodle of 'em for drilling into their pupils. There was nothing like the terror of being on a battlefield to make you appreciate people who had learned to enunciate and speak properly instead of some trendy Politically Correct 'regional' mumble that could have been anything from 'yer oonifoms n fire' to 'Ahama owda fiver?' _

"_No, I've finished, thank you."_

"_I'm Mrs Cicely Humphrey, Chairwoman of the Residents' Committee, if there's some issue that – "_

"_Dr John Watson; not at all, just my after-call to Mrs du Lac. She fell, yesterday."_

"_Ah…I see…" she said in a tone that indicated she rather didn't. "I understood her GPs to be Ventham & Anstruther?"_

"_Quite possibly, I'm not in private practice."_

"_Mrs du Lac had an NHS doctor?" Mrs Humphrey looked like she was torn between laughing in his face and screaming for the police using words like 'escaped lunatic'._

"_I'm not an NHS doctor," which was technically true, being only a temping locum on terminal leave from the British military. The words just shot out from some deep psychic bubbling pot, bypassing his brain's censoring function, "I'm her…Consulting Physician."_

"_I'm rather afraid I'm unfamiliar…'Consulting Physician'?"_

_I'm unfamiliar too, love, since I've apparently just this second invented the damn job…"I provide one-on-one personal medical consultations to those clients I…__**choose**__… to take on," he heard the words coming out of his own mouth as if some inner sprite had come up with the script and was taking charge, hearing that faint soupçon of challenge in his own final words that subtly hinted Mrs Humphrey was in danger of not making the grade._

"I'm on call for house calls to my clients." He summarised now for Seb.

"_I see…similar to a retained solicitor?"_

"What, like having an emergency on-call plumber, only for your _personal_ plumbing?" Seb looked a mix of sceptical and amused.

"Yes, pretty much."

"_Yes, an appropriate analogy. I engage on a weekly retainer and my clients are guaranteed personal consultations by email, text, phone or personal visit in an emergency only, twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five." He blagged outrageously, actually starting to enjoy feeding her this steaming pile of bovine danglies._

_She appeared to be a young, attractive, expensively dressed ash-blonde, and the illusion was so skilfully maintained that even up close it was in large part because he was a medical man that he could see the slight coarsening of the skin and the minute discolouration of her expertly manicured hand that showed the late 20s woman was a cosmetically preserved late 40s, possibly even around the big Five-0, and not in the Hawaii Five-0 TV reboot sense of the phrase. _

"_But why not simply have a personal physician?"_

"They actually pay John H. Watson, the most mournful misery-guts to ever stifle a prank at Bart's, to make house calls to nag them about not eating enough tofu?"

"If you're referring to my quashing that stupid cherry-bomb plan that could have wiped out half the pathology wing and killed a hundred of our fellow students, then yes, they do pay _that _Watson to make house calls."

"_But __**why**__ simply have a personal physician?" he countered. "You don't expect your retained solicitor or tax accountant to follow you around everywhere every day. Who wants to be accompanied by a…killjoy…who looks like he's bitten into a lemon if you so much as look at a small flute of champagne, or who wrinkles his nose at a dram of fifty-year-old Scotch, or who puts you off your breakfast with tut-tutting and tongue-clucking as if every sausage was the work of Satan and eggs were cholesterol incarnate. Especially when you don't need him every day any more than you do your solicitor." _

"_Hum, I see your point."_

"So being some rich hypochondriac old biddy's pet is how Dr Watson affords to live in London on an Army pension. Maybe some of that stuffy sanctimony is finally being leached from you after all. I'll call by for dinner and see your civilian place –"

"I don't think so. My room-mate doesn't like visitors."

"A room-mate as eccentric as _me_? Not again, surely?"

"Not quite," _as homicidal…although there isn't a lot in it, I'll admit, _"but yes I did think: lightning and twice."

"Oh well…in that case…how's dearest Harry?"

Yeah, like he was going to pick up _that _verbal hand grenade.

He didn't bother with an insincere smile. "Good_bye_, Seb."

He deliberately began to walk on, forcing his muscles to relax – Seb was equally as likely to laugh at his back and disappear as swiftly as he'd arrived…or pull the trigger and send that .32 to smash into his spine. At that range and that calibre, it wouldn't kill him, but he'd spend the rest of his life a paraplegic wishing it had.

There came a loud juvenile snigger, and then nothing. He didn't turn back, knowing there would be nobody there – at least this time. _Perfect_, _another self-aggrandizing psychotic with delusions of genius drops by… What is it about this city that seems to attract homicidal narcissists…to __**me **__- even Jim Moriarty seemed to want me on speed dial…_

© 2012, The Cat's Whiskers

All rights reserved

**Author's Notes:**

Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter as played by David Jason (Sir David Jason White, OBE, b.1940) was the co-lead character in the long-running British sitcom _Only Fools and Horses_, created and written by the late John Sullivan, OBE (1946-2011). The other co-lead was actor Nicholas Lyndhurst, who played his 5-years' younger maternal half-brother Rodney 'Trotter'. The show was set in Peckham, in the southeast of London in the Borough of Southwark (pronounced Suthack). The series produced another popular spin-off, _The Green, Green Grass _and a prequel special, _Rock and Chips_.

The original canon character of _Colonel_ Sebastian Moran first appears in the short story, _The Adventure of the Empty House_, published in 1903 in _The Return of Sherlock Holmes _anthology, set c.1894 and is described by Sherlock Holmes as '_the second most dangerous man in London_', the first being Moran's employer, Professor Moriarty.

Ironically, Sebastian Moran is far more featured in the canon and has a much more detailed biography than Moriarty, who only actually features in two stories, as SACD introduced him solely as a plot device by which to kill off Sherlock Holmes, and he is therefore little more than a _cipher_ than any actual _character_.

The original Sebastian Moran was born in London in 1840, son of the famous Sir Augustus Moran. Moran's position to Moriarty was akin to that of Watson's to Holmes – Chief of Staff, Executive Officer, amanuensis, chronicler, biographer, general companion and gallowglass. The difference being Moran was well-paid, whereas Dr Watson remained with Holmes out of loyalty and friendship and earned his living being a GP, not earning money via Holmes.

Moran was a brave soldier and a crack shot, and an author in his own right, having published two books about game hunting in the 1880s, according to SACD. Moriarty specifically tasked Moran with sniper assassinations, due to his skill with a rifle. SACD wrote that Moran followed Moriarty and Holmes to the Reichenbach Falls and attempted to murder Holmes. SACD gives no motive for this, but since no personal loyalty or affection was involved, presumably Moran was enraged at Holmes killing off his personal cash cow, Moriarty. In _The Adventure of the Illustrious Client_, set in 1902, Moran is still alive, and is referenced again in _His Last Bow_, again implying that Moran was still alive at the time, and possibly not in prison.

In _Flashman and the Tiger_, and _Flash for Freedom!_ by George MacDonald Fraser, Moran makes appearances; Fraser turned the expelled bully, Flashman, from _Tom Brown's Schooldays_, into the anti-hero protagonist of his novel series.

Tobias Gregson was a Scotland Yard inspector who featured in four Sherlock Holmes' stories, including _A Study in Scarlet_ _(1887) _in looks, personality, and professional rivalry, Gregson (tall, blonde) and Lestrade (shorter, brunette) were polar opposites. Inspector Athelney Jones features in _The Sign of Four_.

Navvy - A manual labourer, traditionally blue-collar (USA) or working-class (UK) employed exclusively in the excavation and construction of a road, railway, airport/airfield or canal/shipping lane/dockyard. Traditionally a 'navvy' was an uneducated manual labourer, but in the 20th Century the job was sometimes done by educated men unable to find middle-class or white collar work.

BMI – Body Mass Index, one of the greatest scandals and shames of the 20th Century National Health Service. Invented in 1835 by the Belgian polymath mathematician Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet (1796-1874) he used BMI as a statistical tool to calculate a person's racial superiority and inferiority according to their weight. At the time, as has been the case for many thousands of years, 'fatness' or large size, was an indicator of health, wealth, virility, desirability, sexual vigour, higher intelligence and positive characteristics in both men and women. In all ancient cultures, 'fatness' was a positive or a sign of Divine approval, and 'lean' or 'thinness' was a negative or sign of Divine disapproval or punishment.

A lifelong proponent of what came to be known as eugenics, now socio-biology, and the 'inferior/superior' races theory of 'Darwinian' evolution (admittedly invented by Darwin's cousin, Galton), Quetelet's BMI calculations were designed such that white Europeans were always assessed as statistically 'fatter' than black Africans or Arabs, Asians and Orientals, thus healthier, wealthier, brighter, superior.

In the 20th Century in Western countries such as Britain, Europe, America, and the Antipodes, the advent of Television from the 1950s and the rise of 'high-street fashions' for ordinary people, particularly women, has caused a massive overturning of the entire history of the human species for the 'ideal body shape'. A TV or movie camera 'adds ten pounds' and will always make a person look taller and heavier on screen than they are in real life, so actors began to regularly be 'underweight' to look normal on screen, especially women.

Additionally the vast majority of successful fashion designers were homosexual men, whose body shape ideal wasn't buxom breasts, wide hips and a plump bottom, but a flat chest, skinny hips and a small bottom – catwalk 'supermodels' and the clothes thus designed were aimed at this homosexual ideal, the body shape of Twiggy or Victoria 'Posh Spice' Beckham rather than the real life real curves of Melanie Griffiths or Christina Hendricks.

In the 1990s when the Polynesian kingdoms of Samoa and Tonga began to receive mainland US 'satellite TV' broadcasts the incidence of eating disorders amongst the juvenile and youth female population increased by 500 percent within the first five years of transmission. Traditionally buxom and curvaceous women were so highly prized in Polynesia and Africa that only royalty could marry them, and in some African countries it is still a custom in some tribes to feed young women as much food as possible whilst letting them lounge about all day in order to increase their weight – such women will typically marry a prince or king.

The NHS adopted BMI as a way of measuring a person's physical health, despite this perpetual flaw of being biased towards finding a person to be 'heavy'. Since BMI makes no distinction between dense muscle and lighter fat, or a person's sex (men tend to be taller and heavier than women), healthy athletes are classed as 'morbidly obese' and women are often listed as obese when they are not.

Despite a wide variety of scientific research projects proving that BMI is inaccurate at best and an outright scam at worst, the NHS consistently refuses to abandon the scam of BMI because it allows them to cut costs and save money by imposing an arbitrary ban on treatments. Any person whose BMI is over 30 is routinely refused treatments and surgery that will help their problem, whereas anyone under 30 BMI is allowed it, even if a person with a higher BMI is much healthier than the person with a lower BMI. Since for many people a BMI of plus 30 is a side-effect of a health condition that will disappear if they receive treatment, or because they are an active athlete, achieving a BMI reduction of under 30 to become eligible for NHS treatment actually makes the person dangerously unhealthy, even if they can achieve it at all, which some medical conditions do not allow for, and of course the person in question has already paid for the medical treatment they want or need through their taxes, so the NHS is in essence taking their money under false pretences at best, if not outright stealing it.

The reference to the Northumberland Fusiliers in Season 2 Episode 1 _A Scandal in Belgravia _is a mistake of accuracy which to be honest I find very surprising as an authoress myself, given Steve Moffat's obvious relish in writing _ASIB_. At Buckingham Palace, the equerry shakes John's hand and states that John was _'formerly of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers'_. I doubt it very much! In the canon - _A Study in Scarlet_ – when Holmes and Watson first meet, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had Holmes about 22 and Watson about 5 years older (27).

From _A Study in Pink_, it seems that Sherlock and John follow a similar pattern - Sherlock looks to be about 25 because he's graduated university, set up his Science of Deduction website, been consulting with Greg Lestrade for at least 2 years and met Mrs Hudson the year before meeting John, who in turn seems about 30-32. (I'd also suggest Irene Adler as also 30, Molly Hooper is 25, and Lestrade and Mycroft are both about 35).

2010 minus 30 years is a birth year of 1980 for John and Irene, 1985 for Sherlock and Molly and 1975 for Lestrade and Mycroft. In short, the earliest John could have joined the British Army on an officer candidate commission – a commissioned officer candidate was 1998 when he was 18. But the '5th Northumberland Fusiliers' had ceased to exist 30 years earlier when they were amalgamated to form the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in 1968.

I'm not being picky; this is important. Another reason for the popularity of Conan Doyle's stories was that, when they were written, they were cutting edge and contemporary fiction - as poor Steve Moffat has to keep pointing out _ad nauseum_ to those wittering about canonicity. Those original Victor-Edwardian Readers loved them because they could 'suspend their disbelief' and pretend that it might be possible to visit 221B Baker Street and find Sherlock Holmes 'really there'.

The current re-imagining is popular for exactly the same reasons: Sherlock 'could' be real! But it does not pay to despise the god of small things, and it is only respectful to get things right/take a minute or two to quality check, particularly when you are dealing with something like the British military and especially as Martin Freeman has gone on record as saying it was important that Watson be portrayed as confident and competent because medicine and the military are both 'vocations' rather than merely jobs.  
It also feeds into the fans' ability to 'suspend our disbelief'. Remember that John didn't voluntarily return to civilian life in 2010 - as a 12-year-service soldier who'd achieved a captaincy rank he was clearly a career soldier and doubtless well-liked and respected; probably heading towards promotion to Major with the smart money eyeing him up for brevet Colonel.

If the 3rd or dare I say, 4th trilogy season does bring in Sebastian Moran as a sort of anti-John character as he was in the original canon, as Moriarty was the anti-Sherlock, you need to get their back-story right – John's approximate age meant he couldn't have had a 'history' with Moran that included the Cold War (1946-1989) which ended when he was only 9 years old (yes, I know that's an oversimplification) or the 1st Gulf War/Desert Storm (1990-1991) which ended when he was 11 years old, but an age of 18 in 1998 would have let him be out in the world in a medico-military context at the tail end of the Balkan Genocides, Northern Ireland and the IRA, 9/11, the 2nd Gulf War, 7/7, the Rwanda Genocide, Darfur, the intermittent Basque terrorist attacks and others besides and so on.

As a fan, my enjoyment of any show is lessened if I have to ignore a blooper so big you could pilot the QE2 through it sideways. I'm surprised someone of Steve Moffat's calibre made such a careless mistake. I presume a fair few fans of Sherlock are military, and that was a lazy, unnecessary error that will justifiably irritate them. It's especially annoying since the show went to the trouble to get other small touches right - notice John's favourite tea mug has a regimental crest on it for instance? The real 5th Northumberland Fusiliers featured 9 Victoria Cross winners, 1 George Cross winner and was one of the "Six Old Corps" of legendary repute entitled to wear the badge of St. George Slaying the Dragon rather than the simple royal cipher of other regiments. Getting the little details right does matter.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer and etc.:**__ See Chapter 1_

**Holmesian Logic**

**Part I**

**Chapter 3**

The cab pulled up outside 221B Baker Street and as he could now afford to do, he gave a good tip. He had no doubt that the inappropriately named Jeffrey Hope had been a freak psycho amongst the genial cabbies of London, but nowadays he still made sure he 'knew' faces.

Of course, he hadn't been as oblivious as most of the iPod Generation seemed to be nowadays but association with Sherlock Holmes was honing observation skills he hadn't realised were rusty, although it was depressing to realise he was increasingly needing the hyperawareness that had kept him and his men alive in the ''Stan' back here in what was supposed to be safe, secure, boring and bucolic Blighty…

The CIA were psycho bastards to a man but he couldn't argue with their complaining that that Britain's capital was ever more Londonistan than London with all the loonies and bigots who could rant and rave hate to their hearts' content as publicly as they wanted to as long as they were some combination of non-white/non-British/non-Christian/homosexuals/wo men and their targeted victims were one or more combination of white/British/Christian/heterosexual/male – i.e., not lucky enough to belong to some 'disadvantaged' 'community' group who thus had an excuse to embrace 'Victimology ideology' and the associated smorgasbord of nice-little-earner 'funds' 'grants' and 'benefits' to avoid all that nasty 'working for a living' or having to deal with things like The Real World and How Life Really Is in that no, it is not always everybody else's fault, that's why it's call _personal _responsibility.

Better still, he was confident he had passed his most recent consultation-test with Mrs Humphrey, who was no mental slouch in her own right, because he had recommended a discreet prescription of a mild anti-depressant, Fluoxetine, not for its official purpose but to reduce menopausal 'hot flushes'.

Since the research was still 'new', he knew his recommendation had reassured Mrs Humphrey that he was up-to-date medically. He wondered what she would say if she knew that wasn't the case - he hadn't had time to catch up on medical literature in a long, long time - military personnel had been using such products as Fluoxetine for years for its non-prescription purpose because their unofficial consequence was reducing blood flow to the body's extremities like the face, fingers and toes, which if you were a soldier who'd just been shot or critically injured in an explosion could make the difference between you surviving or bleeding to death; a crucial buyer of time for the poor sod in question, since most of the casualties in Teflon Tony's little war were survivor-but-amputees…

Like Lil Joe, a tough blue-eyed Liverpudlian nicknamed because of his resemblance to Michael Landon, the _Bonanza _actor who'd played Lil Joe Cartwright…poor bastard had lost his left leg…and been castrated…the blast had cauterised his groin as it vaporised his cock and balls, which was why he hadn't bled to death…humour black as a coal mine at midnight, Lil Joe, in the hospital…

'_What I don't get, sir, is how did the local Alky Ada and Abdul duck fukkur lot __**know**__?'_

'_Know what?' being Captain when your man was down sucked, being Captain __**Doctor **__Watson and knowing how bad the bloke was screwed – now in the only way he ever would be thanks to the Taliban – made you want to puke and your eyes burn and your soul wither._

'_About me missus, sir? Once she'd got her benefits meal-ticket bairn courtesy of her sperm donor come cash machine sucker she took everything including me balls in the divorce, but I only got the decree knee-in-your-kiddie-sac two days ago – how did she get word to the Taliban twats about it so they could finish her job?'_

_And they'd both burst out laughing, and if some of the moisture in their eyes wasn't there because of mirth, neither were letting on about it._

Because if you didn't laugh…you'd cry, then you'd scream, then you'd find somewhere quiet like Regent's Park at two a.m. and your service weapon loaded with _one _bullet and hello, PTSD statistic, 'cause yeah, the idea had crossed his mind on the days when it had been really bad and he'd been stuck in his crappy bedsit because his gimpy leg had seized up and he couldn't manage the stairs...but then Lil Joe had popped up in his mind and pointed out that at least Captain Watson still had a leg, gimpy or no, and at least he still had the balls to decide if he had the balls – or the cowardice, depending on your point of view – to put his Browning in his mouth and pull the trigger…

It said everything about the state of British medicine and the 'military covenant' that the fact that the finest genital reconstructive surgeon in the UK was a med school mate who owed J. H. Watson _big time_ as in not-thrown-out-of-med-school - yet he'd still had to beg and rant to get Lil Joe in to see the man… '_Hamish, you're my mate and I know what I owe you, but I haven't taken a holiday in three years and I'm flat out balls to the wall – sorry, no pun intended – doing traumatic reconstructive surgery. I finish every day exhausted to my toe nails and exhilarated to my fingertips because I'm helping heroes with real medicine not just doing egomaniac compensating penis-enlargements for Z-List celebrity wannabes...The MoD are funding my kids at Eton and Oxbridge and I'll be retiring to the North Shore on Oahu like that poster I showed you… Thing is, Hammy, you could wallpaper Westminster – the Abbey, not that sodding Palace where Teflon T. and his ilk used to swan about – with my waiting list…but I'll squeeze this Joe fella in for you…'_

He didn't know how things had gone for Joe medically – he would rather never know, because that way he could hope something had been possible to help. The one positive was that Joe now had sole custody of his young son…and hefty child maintenance payments from his ex, including a goodly chunk of the assets _she _had initially cleaned him out of, after he'd got a sympathetic solicitor – ex-RAF Wing Commander, no less – and gone to court with the incontrovertible evidence that his baby was going to be his only child, whereas she could have further children…According to what he'd heard on the grapevine, the ex-missus had shown a bit too much of her true nature in expecting the Judge to fall for the usual shtick of 'parent with boobs is a living saint, parent with balls is there to be shat upon from a great height'. The Judge had apparently played the old duffer long enough for her to hang herself with the noose His Honour had given her and then made a series of judgements in Joe's favour. The solicitor had even got the little boy into Harrow on a scholarship for ex-servicemen from somewhere – the kid would have all the advantages his dad had never had. 

And if there ever was or would be any 'shining beacon' in being around Sherlock Holmes then it was that he didn't have time, usually, for his _own_ PTSD to kick in. He rarely had nightmares or flashbacks because Sherlock was too high maintenance for even profound psychological trauma to be able to compete…he wasn't sure that made much sense, never mind the fact that it would send most psychiatrists running screaming into the night at such convoluted brain 'issues', but he'd take what he could get.

And after the PTSD arse-kicker that was, 'I'm a high-functioning sociopath' with a gerbil's attention span and a toddler's attention seeking to boot, alias Sherlock Holmes, the other PTSD-dragon slayer was his coterie of ladies – Mrs Humphrey et al, whose unpredictable timing meant that he tended to catch sleep when he could on the rare occasions of Sherlock's 'down time' because one of them might call.

The day after their very first, memorable encounter as he'd left Mrs du Lac, he'd left Sarah's surgery to be approached by a middle-aged 'suit' conspicuous by his very blandness – although not _quite _in the same league as Mycroft Holmes, who despite his best efforts 'leaked' chilling menace like a kitchen tap with a slow but persistent drip. The 'suit' had requested, no way was that plummy mellifluous tone merely an 'ask', to be advised of his account and retainer fee so Mrs Humphrey's payment could be 'meretriciously facilitated'. He'd only ever heard that word spoken aloud as part of normal conversation once in his entire life, by Sherlock during Moriarty's sick game with the fake _Vermeer_, and for split-second he _had_ wondered whether 'bland' really _was_ Mycroft in some sort of disguise.

He had mentally calculated: the weekly costs of groceries, utilities, services, taxicab budget, ammunition for his service pistol (which was going to take some fast talking if Lestrade ever laid eyes on it, though he suspected the good DI knew but was ignoring its existence for now) and then accounted for inflation, any actual medical supplies/treatments he might need to perform – probably on one pathologically over-confident Consulting Detective in the middle of nowhere or some London side-street in 'battlefield' conditions – and a 'contingency fund' savings account – instant access cash ISA, in fact – to ward of total penury, and finally added in 'disposable income' for cash-in-hand needs. After the breath had caught in his throat at the total, he'd added another one hundred pounds on a what-the-hell basis and found himself uttering the sum out loud.

Mrs Humphrey's 'man' hadn't batted an eyelash. And even better, Mrs Olegenski, Mrs Humphrey's best-friend-stroke-arch-rival and equally as wealthy, also now had him on medical retainer, as did Mrs du Lac, determined not miss out on the 'action'; and there was even mention of a Mrs Cholmondeley-Howard, who was apparently not to be outdone – it seemed the luxury apartment building's residents were a preponderance of rich widows/divorcées, ladies of a _certain age_, who had all befriended and be-rivalled each other.

The important part was that thanks to his coterie of consulting clients, Financial Solvency had jumped his bones like a drunken nymphomaniac and was sucking his face off at the same time its hand was shoved down his trousers as well. Most of the income received from 'his ladies' went straight into a series of non-immediate access high-interest rate accounts and _offshore _funds that were unashamedly 'tax efficient' – he'd literally bled for his Queen and his Country and had no qualms about joining British MPs on their bloated gravy train.

The simple reason, as he had tacitly admitted to himself, was that he was – nowadays - financial planning 'for two'. Brilliant Sherlock undoubtedly was, but it had taken him barely a day to realise that Sherlock didn't do the minutiae of daily living and would, quite literally, starve to death before approaching his brother Mycroft for help. An attitude he fully understood – Harry was loaded, in more ways than just financially, but just like Mycroft seemed to be doing, made the mistake of believing that gave her the right to dictate and micromanage.

But still, Sherlock needed protecting from the world just as much as it needed protecting from him; the events of the past year had proved _that_ if nothing else. Greg Lestrade was a great mind and a rare proper police officer in politically-correct liberal-bigoted Britain but he had a young family and a life and couldn't – and wouldn't – spend his precious time running interference for Sherlock Holmes.

So far Sherlock had somehow got away with things on the basis of his youth and extraordinary precocity but he wasn't shielded by the halls of 'academe' any more – as it was he'd had to transfer to Oxbridge for his final year a whisker away from being expelled from Trinity College in his and Mycroft's native Dublin – a city not noted for being uptight and socially repressive, so God only knew what he'd done to piss off the Irish to _that _extent; that much he'd gleaned from his quick Internet search on Sherlock the afternoon after Mike Stamford had taken him to Bart's pathology lab, though the details were unknown.

As James Moriarty had so painfully exposed, more than once, at the cost of many lives, including twelve innocents in a block of flats _and _via Irene Adler,through a destroyed opportunity to wreak havoc on the operations of multiple terrorist groups, Sherlock was living in the real world now. But genetics had given with one hand, in the form of a genius IQ, and taken away with the other, in the form of textbook-diagnosis autism and at the very least neo-sociopathic tendencies.

Sherlock had the social skills of a dead skunk – he'd end up in prison or dead, or in prison and then dead, in short order if he faced off against some Jobsworth with a guilty conscience who had him arrested for some fictional 'hate crime' or something, or played it really smart and nasty and had him sectioned under the Court of Protection which were held _in secret_…and how had that practice of banana republics and Stalinist mass murder weaselled its way into the British Justice System for God's sake? No wonder he'd never really gotten the sense that Greg Lestrade was _joking_ with those muttered Criminal _Protection _Service rather than _Prosecution _Service quips. Banged up inside, Sherlock would proceed to mouth off patronisingly to everyone he met as he was foisted on up the food chain because before one John H. Watson had been corralled into being a _Sancho Panza_-lite there was nobody to tell Sherlock to shut up and stop digging.

The fate, or apparent fate, because he still wasn't entirely sold on that, of Irene Adler – also a high-functioning sociopath with strong tendencies towards operating at the psychopathic end of the 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' spectrum – had demonstrated what could all too easily happen to Sherlock without someone around to stop him pulling the pin on the verbal grenade every five minutes.

And he wasn't foolish enough – or at least, not any more – to believe that he himself would be _necessarily_ be alive in the long-term to filter out the world's crap before it brained Sherlock like a half-brick through a jeweller's window. Of course, he intended to try and pull _staying alive_ off for as long as possible, but he had never been given the luxury of denial in his life and he wasn't going to try and start it now on his own account, so he had made a new Will, very discreetly with the Watson's family solicitor – another 'generation unto generation' family business in their local area – and even more discreetly updated his own personal, private 'man of affairs' go-to-guy from back in black ops about who got what and the minutiae you didn't dare commit to paper…

So black ops as to be invisible even to Mycroft, or at least he was 98 percent confident of that…because there was a great deal about John H. Watson that had never been recorded outside his own skull - he had learned at a _very_ young kiddie age, courtesy of his sister, _never_ to write anything down that you would be upset if you found your mum had read it – or been deliberately told about it. He'd learned how to be an Iron Bitch from the baddest of them all, and Harriet Watson was an excellent teacher…_thanks, sis…_and he meant it.

Sometimes, as he looked in the mirror, he wondered whether he would be called stupid or loyal for the fact that he had made it clear to 'his man in…' that Sherlock was to be 'cared for' – as opposed to the far more ominous 'taken care of', which could be construed inappropriately – even if Sherlock was the one who got him killed, or, equally as possible, just got bored with dull, pedestrian, trite John Watson cluttering up the place and evicted him in preference to an endless succession of wealthier, temporarily _interesting _flatmates.

Even if that was the way it went down, he didn't care – Sherlock Holmes had saved him a small fortune he hadn't possessed in useless therapy, cured his psychosomatic leg injury as a passing frivolity and indirectly led him to a method to earn a comfortable living _in the capital _without having to prostitute his morals metaphorically or his body literally to do so, all of which meant that any future termination, either his own death, or because Sherlock got bored and kicked him out, would be a worthwhile price for the immensity of what _he _had got out of their association so far.

And, speaking of metaphorical prostitution and his being able to earn a decent living without being beholden, above all there was the joyous fact that his Consulting Physician gig enabled him to meet eligible women on an _equal footing_ these days.

In more positive moods, he told himself it wasn't her having to tolerate Sherlock's intransigent tantrums that had seen his and Sarah Sawyer's romance peter out – though getting abducted and nearly murdered by the Tong hadn't helped – but rather the inescapable fact he had been the locum _employee_ who was dependent on keeping in good with his boss to keep a roof over his and Sherlock's heads and food on the table…And worse who had to pay the bill for a meal out – or a takeaway_ in_, if he ever got that far with a new lady – using money they both knew was his locum's salary, i.e., Sarah's money; it was too much like borrowing twenty quid off her the week before her birthday and then buying her a gift she knew cost £19.99.

However, he'd seen her wall of reserve go back up at pretty much the same time as he'd first wangled Mrs Humphrey as a client…days before that she had quietly suggested they 'take a step back' and she'd assured him with what Harry would have called _protesting overmuch_ that his locum position was 'absolutely fine'. He still didn't know what cautionary impulse had made him keep quiet about his new 'retainer client' in the form of Mrs H., but he had gravely agreed and assured her he knew she wouldn't be underhanded in the employment situation.

But it had been too awkward, not least because for the first few weeks Mrs Humphrey had taken to calling him at odd times of the night, early morning and mid-afternoon as if to ensure her 24/7/365 service really was 'as it says on the tin'. Fortunately he'd long-ago gotten in to the habit on deployments of sleeping with his mobile under his head, waking instantly at the near-silent vibration. Sherlock had been out most of the time with the…had it been the Geeks case? He couldn't remember offhand, but Sherlock had been mostly out of sight and mind, but no matter how discreetly, him sneaking in late or leaving the surgery early had been troublesome and it had been an obvious if unspoken relief for both of them when he had told her he had found other locum work, which he supposed Mrs H. & Co. counted as if you squinted at them in a certain light.

Things had become worse when he had met…what had her name been? And Sherlock had wrapped up the case; Sarah hadn't been able to hide her relieved reaction when he'd explained he felt he wasn't being fair in the lukewarm fits-and-starts attempt maintain their relationship because of new work commitments with Sherlock and promptly agreed they should end their romance 'for the time being'. He still kept in contact with the nutritionist, Chloe Reddish, through her husband's deli shop, but being a locum at all had tied him too much to one place – you couldn't be Sherlock Holmes' blogger-stroke-sidekick-stroke-nanny-stroke-ego-st roker-stroke-personal-minion-of-all-trades and work 'office hours', but Mrs Humphrey et al provided what he had needed to find, the Holy Grail of his enforced, unwanted return to civilian life: _flexible hours but regular income_.

His blog was currently popular and had been all year – but_ next_ year? For every Google, Facebook and Twitter there were a dozen similar – and sometimes better – fads that hadn't made it. Like VHS and Betamax – the former had won the video wars, despite being the inferior system – or Windows software, because Bill Gates had been a businessman who patented DOS, whilst the man who invented the better system at the same time had been an inventor designing something that worked properly rather than made money, and was now forgotten to fickle history.

The fact that his blog had been getting him and Sherlock – just - enough cases that matched Sherlock's exacting standards of 'intellectual curiosity' and which also paid well enough for them to cover their living costs in the middle of _London_ didn't mean that it would continue doing so next month, or the month after that, when the next scandal/shiny new toy/latest five-second-celebrity hit the media and _'Consulting Detective? Darling, so last season,'_ might happen.

And he had also realised that earning a living wage solely from being Sherlock's Holmes online biographer was just a rerun of having been a locum doctor at his (then) girlfriend's surgery – you could be someone's friend, or their boss, but not both. Sherlock had been Mrs Hudson's ally, friend and tenant before him – it was Sherlock's name on the flat tenancy, as technically Sherlock was allowed to 'sub-let' the second floor – currently to his trusty sidekick.

Even if Sherlock didn't get bored with him in the sidekick department, being the flatmate and sole 'cheering section' of the world's most infuriating man put his blood pressure in orbit on average twice before breakfast. He didn't ask for much out of life but he needed his morning cuppa tea…and he did have a bit of temper himself…he _hadn't _been remotely joking when he'd told Sherlock, '_I always hear, 'punch me in the face' when you're speaking…' _So, if he and Sherlock ever did 'get into it' and have a set-to so serious that Sherlock kicked him out, having no other income than being his _bête noir_'s blogger would reduce him to instant penury and to stay in London would require him to join Sherlock's London _homeless network_, down on the Embankment and Vauxhall, where the likes of Golem had hidden out. And like Sherlock with Mycroft, he would _literally die_ before he went anywhere near asking Harry for help. And as well there was just the plain fact that having just the blog to provide him an income gave Holmes, S. 'Manipulative Bastard', way too much confidence and a false sense of 'top dog' syndrome.

Being dependent on your ex-girlfriend and/or your deadbeat room-mate for a living wage to support you and your aforesaid deadbeat room-mate had not exactly been part of his five-year plan…Mind you neither had been getting blown up in some godforsaken sandpit halfway round the world from home to make Teflon Tony look good on the six o'clock news, either.

But he _couldn't _leave Sherlock to his own devices. Mycroft had made a couple of brief snide visits to 221B and during one such had revealed (under the impression that he was already aware) that Sherlock's sudden onset of 'hoarse voice' as he came out of Soo Yun Lin's flat during that Blind Banker hairpin mess was because he'd just been half-throttled to death by that Tong assassin-acrobat who had been hiding inside and able to attack him because Sherlock hadn't _used the common sense of a seam squirrel and gone straight to the door to let his __**armed**__ companion in to help! _

He _couldn't_ abandon Sherlock to the consequences of his lapses into sociopathic 'stupidity' – what normal people would call overweening over-self-confidence – because as Greg Lestrade had once said, with a wry shrug, _'our little corner of the world is a bit safer as long as Sherlock is in it, doing what he does.' _

It would be like taking a toddler to Clapham Junction at rush hour and abandoning him/her with a cheerful _'go play!'_ Sherlock getting shot/stabbed/strangled/shot-_up_ or otherwise killed or permanently injured was _not_ what you did to your comrade-in-arms. The possibly late Irene Adler had been a catalyst in showing that Sherlock was capable of emotion, but like a toddler allowed to drive a Formula One car, they were all too powerful for him to handle and he had no coping mechanisms and it was blindingly obvious it was never going to end well within the first five seconds of watching Sherlock and Irene smoulder at each other literally two feet away from him – the sociopathic emotional virgin and the sociopathic dominatrix prostitute…

Although a slight pity in a way too: the paparazzi or never-ending supply of self-appointed 'citizen-journalists' – i.e., some rubber-necking nosey-parker/busybody with a smartphone and without any concept of respecting others' rights to personal privacy - getting wind, or better still a few juicy snapshots/video footage of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler going at it like rabbits, would have helped him out no end, especially in the getting his end away department, over all the mistaken assumptions people made – and the tabloids made-up - about what were euphemistically termed his and Sherlock's 'living arrangements'.

Nor did that even begin to cover Sherlock's complete panic attack on Dartmoor when he'd _seen and heard_ a gigantic, supernatural hellhound. That moment, when Sherlock's vicious monologue had ended with _'I don't have friends'_, had been the closest he had – yet – come to grabbing his backpack, walking back to the train station there and then, clearing out his things from 221B into storage and letting the sod find a new room-mate stroke lackey stroke scapegoat. If he hadn't noticed what he thought were Morse code flashes he _would _have.

But…clumsily though Sherlock had worded that _mea culpa_, he had understood, and forgiven: For Sherlock, it was all about the tangible and the empirical – the brain, serene and crystalline – without superstitious nonsense and wishy-washy metaphysical nonsense. Sherlock had been absolutely terrified he was losing the one thing he had any talent for – logical, rational, material, empirical, measurable, deduction. _That_ had been why he had been white-faced, shaking, twitching, snarling and snapping.

And he himself had also been at fault too, because if it had been _anyone_ else than Sherlock the Winter King, he would have recognised a full-blown panic attack straight off the bat, except like everyone else he sometimes treated Sherlock like an emotionless robot you could fix by turning it off at the socket then turning it back on – instant reboot, sorted.

So, he would make very sure Mrs Humphrey and company received a top notch medical consultation for their retainer fees – completely flexible hours with a sufficiently weekly income that did not depend on either him being a locum (the bottom of the pecking order in medical circles) or on earning a living through his blog. Above all, it should help him achieve a real relationship with some woman out there. Marriage and children _were_ part of his life plan, and had been long before their potential to scotch or at least severely dent the ongoing rumours about him and the world's most annoying human being.

_Speedy's _was quite busy but he shook his head in a quick negative as the server nodded to him in silent question. He'd done the grocery shopping, it was being delivered later. Still, it was nice to be acknowledged – and he was pleased _Speedy's_ was always so busy.

When he had first been medically discharged and come back to town from Selly Oak, he had had to sign on the dole as his army pension, as well as being as slow to 'come through' as continental drift, was wholly inadequate for London living, so he'd ended up bonding with Mrs Hudson during their 'crap daytime TV' sessions.

They'd been watching…_House Hunters…Young, Rich and House-Hunting_…? Whatever, one of those brain-rotting daytime TV shows that had you yelling at the screen within ten seconds of the opening credits…Mrs Hudson had let it slip that she had inherited 221 Baker Street free and clear of a mortgage, but with precious little money for maintenance and upkeep.

Her husband had pressured her to make a quick sale for the cash of a London property, but she hadn't – fortunately as it turned out because before he'd finished up stateside and ended up being executed in the Sunshine State' of Florida (_well deserved, dear, I'm afraid to say_), her husband had drained all their joint bank accounts and absconded from the UK on a little solo tour of the fleshpots of South America. Only a couple of small solo name savings' accounts and a solitary cash ISA account were beyond his ability to purloin.

Mrs Hudson had brushed it off, but his own financial situation pre that fortuitous encounter with Mrs Humphrey, meant he could now appreciate the iron nerve it must have taken for Mrs Hudson to go ahead with her two-pronged 'triumph or disaster' plan and sink her little remaining capital into the dual project of turning 221 into a shop-front for _Speedy's Sandwich Bar and Café_ and the remainder of the elegant town-house into flats A, B and C (_you hear such horror stories of landladies being done in by nefarious lodgers, dear, but until it got established the café wasn't enough to pay my way…_) Especially as her _only _prospective tenant at the time was a brilliant but outrageously rude university undergrad with no regular income other than what he was able to squeeze out of people via his one-man-band dot com website as the world's first self-invented 'consulting detective'.

Luckily for her and indirectly himself and Sherlock, the leap of faith had been successful in the most important aspect of the project - _Speedy's _now paid its own way, albeit with a narrow margin of error, which had given her a bit of breathing room to show a certain 'Sherlock-no-I-don't-hold-down-a-steady-job-I'm-an -intellectual-wunderkind-you-peasant' some largesse in the rent paying department.

It was her decision to divide the house into flats that had led to the odd numbering of the address, as he'd ventured to ask during the adverts of whatever mid-morning pap they were letting rot their brains…

"_Do you mind me asking, shouldn't it be 221A Baker Street, since Speedy's is 221?"_

"_Oh the door? It's a complete fluke, dear. A friend of mine's husband was one of those butterfly types, you know… constantly flitting from one new hobby to another every other minute…"_

"_But not before decking himself out in the full kit and buying all the equipment in that first rush of enthusiasm before it all got bunged in the basement to gather dust. We used to call them Toad of Toad Hall types like in Wind in The Willows."_

"_Oh yes, I like that, but you're quite right. Used to kit himself out in all the regalia and equipment; wore or used it once then got all enamoured of the next sparkly toy. Mind you, she made a fortune on eBay and Amazon through flogging brand new gear and gizmos after she found out that his new hobby usually included some teenage tart mistress – pardon my French, dear – admiring his technique, huh-hum. She made very quietly researching good divorce lawyers __**her**__ hobby. Another cup of tea?"_

"_Yes please."_

"_Anyway we ended up commiserating as you do as she'd divorced him and I'd had, well my trouble…I don't know what I'd have done if I hadn't met Sherlock that day my husband sent me word he expected me to help him get out of that fix in Florida…Anyway, her husband had done this brass sculpting course at one point – he'd made all these lovely polished brass numbers and letters, and she had a few left – 221 wasn't a problem but the only capital letter she had left was a 'B'."_

"_And there would have been no point in turning it down just for a technicality," he agreed, aware that the reality had no doubt been that she couldn't afford to refuse any freebie she had gotten at that point._

"_Exactly, so that's why my flat behind the café is 221A and the spare basement flat is 221C, so the main one that takes up the first and second floors that you and Sherlock have got is 221B…Oh dear just look at that wallpaper, which reminds me I'm sorry dear but if Sherlock is going to keep graffitiing the living room wallpaper with spray paint and then shooting holes in the patterns I'm going to charge for it…_

Well, he'd agreed with her on that point. He hadn't said anything to Mrs Hudson, but he intended to persuade – or force - Sherlock to take on the remaining flat rent, 221C, as a lab/place to blow stuff up/keep human heads in the fridge if-you-must. Although he'd only had a brief look at the basement flat back when Jim Moriarty had broken in and left poor Carl Powers' trainers for Sherlock to find, it had been fairly obvious Mrs Hudson was on a hiding to nothing trying to rent it out as being _liveable_, especially these days.

About twenty years' back she might have had a chance with some on-his-uppers University student all of eighteen and _happy_ to exist in squalor as long as it was cheap-as-chips rent. These days there was so much job-creation bureaucracy smothering landlords in red tape from one side and on the other the kids of today were so much more wussy-pussy wimps; none of them seemed able to think or act for themselves, instead each one had a 'helicopter' parent – usually Mother – who researched universities, arranged accommodation and inspected proposed institutions of great learning…Bloke Though He Was, he knew every yummy mummy in the world would have a fit at the site of 221C Baker Street: carpet – damp; walls – mould; ceiling – dry rot…and those were its _best_ features. These days kids thought they were 'in poverty' or 'in crisis' if their iPod's batteries went flat, and every kid expected two-bedroom 'digs' carpeted throughout with fully-fitted kitchen and top-range microwaves and the like.

It seemed the damp problem the basement flat suffered from was caused by the Victorian drainage system that would cost many thousands to put right, money Mrs Hudson didn't have as it would necessitate decimating her greenhouses and vegetable plot in the back garden, which she used for _Speedy's_ café to reduce supply costs even further. It was highly unlikely she would get anyone who could or would pay even the lowest rent she would have to charge for the basement – especially when they had _Sherlock Holmes_ living on the floor above them. Thanks to Mrs H. and company he had made a mental note to check when his various funds were replete enough and then ask his personal 'man of affairs'/ 'fixer' to get the drains sorted; the contractors would cheerfully charge Mrs Hudson a much-reduced sum with a cheerful '_not as bad as we thought, love_' – which might be the case in truth, as the Victorians were much better at building things to last than flimsy modern day efforts.

Even without invasions of CIA goons with guns – he wished Sherlock had let him help with that scumbag Yank who'd roughed up Mrs Hudson; he was an _Army doctor_, he could have crippled the guy seven ways from Sunday and made every one look totally accidental – there was still Sherlock's infuriating habit when he decided he wanted John to be gopher, of just standing on the first floor landing and bellowing'_John! John!_ _Are you awake!_' up the stairs to the second floor like an angry Pamplona bull. Either Mrs Hudson was a bit deaf or else she had the world's best earmuffs.

And of course, he dare not ignore Sherlock when he did that – he couldn't take the risk of ignoring Sherlock yelling for him when there was always a 50-50 chance it would be a genuine emergency - Sherlock fighting off one against two kung-fu ninja assassins or rogue CIA whack jobs, or Jim Moriarty hired/inspired thugs or something. _And of course, the world's only consulting detective knows damn well I won't take the risk of ignoring him either, which is why the lazy, manipulative bastard does it_…

And last but by no means least were Sherlock's 'manic' moods, when there weren't any cases – or rather, none that weren't _'dull, dull, oh god what pointless and futile little lives you people lead! Boring!'_ – or else his experiments weren't progressing how he wanted and it was temper tantrums or sulks or general agitation. He'd thought he'd seen the worse when he persuaded – okay, insisted – Sherlock go cold turkey from his nicotine patch habit, but the scary truth was there'd been no discernible difference in the acting out _then_ to _now_.

He unlocked the heavy, antique, genuine wooden door that was a good three inches thick – he suspected Mrs Hudson had never bothered seeking 'official' clearance from any conservation officer to put a Yale lock on the upper half - and stepped inside the solid Georgian construct – just a moment too late he registered the soup-thick tension in the air and the raised voices:

"…_not _a matter of national security – "

" – no, it's a matter of national pride –"

Well this explained the absence of Mrs Hudson, who was usually 'in' this time of the morning: Mycroft was here.

Mycroft had stomped into Baker Street the day after the showdown at Irene Adler's mansion, when Sherlock was still smarting from Adler literally getting the drop on him and sedating him and he himself was definitely still tetchy at coming within a half-second of being murdered by that CIA goon Archer, now happily dead – thank you Miss Adler, courtesy of her booby-trapped wall safe – whom he had no doubt would have blown his brains out without hesitation.

Ignoring the warning signs of his frosty reception from brother and brother's room-mate, Mycroft had made the dangerous tactical error of snapping angrily at Mrs Hudson in front of him and Sherlock, and they'd both been within a whisker of bodily ejecting him from the premises. He suspected that desire to summarily despatch Mycroft from the house, preferably bloody, bruised and very dishevelled, had given Sherlock his splendid idea of heaving the chief CIA scumbag out of the window for roughing up Mrs Hudson.

On that same day he and Sherlock had caught the Paddington train to Devon on the heels of Henry Knight, in a well meaning attempt to make amends but with seriously unfortunate timing, Mycroft had clued Mrs Hudson in on the existence of her 'prospective gentleman friend Mr Chattajee's' secret wives in Bombay and Doncaster, unaware Sherlock had exposed the existence of the secret wife in Islamabad barely two hours earlier. '_It was quite sweet of him, in a deranged sort of way, dear_' Mrs Hudson had confided to him when they got back, but ever since Mycroft and Mrs Hudson avoided each other by some sort of unspoken mutual agreement that discretion was the better part of valour.

" -it's a matter of the rampant egos of the _National Antiquities Museum_ still stinging from being gulled out of _thirty million_ for an obviously fake Vermeer being peddled by a brat of a mass-murdering psychopath. Get Lestrade – no, don't, he's far too good for this time-waster – get _Anderson _and his bit on the side Sergeant Sally Donovan on it, they may be stupid bigots but they could still solve it in five minutes!"

- And the door jamb skimmed past his belated grabbing fingertips and 'thunked' clearly as it shut out the street noise of traffic excellently.

An instant silence fell as two people paused in the middle of screaming at each other. He resisted the urge to carol, _'hello Mycroft'_ or even better, '_Mycroft, thought I recognised that grating nasal whine!_' as he trotted up the stairs, deciding to just keep on going up to his own suite on the second floor if they would just –

_Yeah right. _

Mycroft Holmes appeared in the left-hand doorway of the first floor living-room/kitchen just as he managed to slide past it to the foot of the next staircase up to the second floor. The elder Holmes' brother – or older Holmes brother - he wasn't sure whether there were more Holmes' siblings in this generation, but something in Sherlock and Mycroft's attitude towards each suggested they were the only two children – was as usual immaculately attired: dark blue/white pinstripe suit with an actual pocket watch and chain – solid gold, not for a second was that soft buttery metal mere veneer – pure silk claret red – or blood red, depending on your cynicism – tie, with discreet gold tie pin that he strongly suspected was a multifunctional video and audio surveillance device come handy miniature lock pick, finished off by that highly polished pair of staid black shoes; the whole ensemble was nevertheless extremely expensive, hand-stitched and made to measure.

However, his face had a faintly pinched look which showed that his diet was going very badly – that was to say, it was going excellently at this point in that Mycroft looked sleek and svelte, but badly in the sense that Mycroft was no doubt enduring a constant gnawing hunger.

Last week when Mycroft had rung _his_ mobile so he could put him on to speak to _Sherlock_ – he was now apparently also their personal messenger service, was he? - Sherlock had backed away from taking the call to the other side of the room and advised him – over the open phone line - at a volume just slightly below a dull roar that Mycroft was an Epicure of note and could tell a properly seared Wagu steak across a wide room and touched nothing other than _Dom Romane Conti 1997 _which apparently retailedat a zesty £1500 per bottle, and therefore Mycroft could get in touch again only when he was prepared to share the gastronomic goodness with his 'brother and friends' at the Diogenes Restaurant, _the _most exclusive invitation-only civil service club in the capital. Unsurprisingly the call had been cut off at Mycroft's end by that point, but Sherlock had taken a clearly visceral glee in going on to inform him that unless Mycroft maintained being a serial dieter, he was prone to developing the physique of Alfred Hitchcock and becoming as wide as he was tall.

Given how manic Sherlock had been during his withdrawal from the nicotine patches, the psychotically repressed and suppressed Mycroft must endure sheer torture in maintaining that façade of perpetually supercilious urbane _sangfroid _whenever his weight started to creep up past _'it's diet time'_.

He tried to look bland; he wasn't _quite _brave enough yet to offer 'healthy' eating advice to Sherlock Holmes' even more dangerous brother - yo-yo dieters were a psychotic breed in their own right at the best of times.

Especially when honesty would compel him to point out what any honest doctor knew that real healthy eating boiled down to 'prepare properly from fresh' and virtually everything you were told about red meat, dairy, cholesterol, vegetarianism, macrobiotic this and blood pressure that was a complete load of steaming bovine faeces pushed by drug companies wanting everyone on some sort of pill and lapped up by a willing public who wanted to be as ripped as Daniel Craig or as delicious as Christina Hendricks but also wanted to achieve that whilst being able to spend all day as a couch-potato. Explaining in-depth to Mycroft that his fat free yoghurt had more _bad _sugars in it than a chocolate bar and that skimmed dishwater actually caused his body to horde fat unlike full-cream full-fat milk and that a wonderfully marbled sirloin steak done rare with a liberal sprinkling of sea salt was both more nutritious and more diet-friendly than a skinless white chicken breast with lettuce leaves would go down about as well as kicking Mycroft in the shins.

Mycroft's grip on his ubiquitous tightly furled black umbrella was white-knuckled and his other arm was pressed tight against his side, holding in place under his armpit a thin beige 'wallet' file, peeking out from behind an upside down folded-in-half copy of _The Times_ newspaper from two days ago. Even though the headline was upside down, he knew it read: _New National Antiquities Museum Scandal_ - _Sacrilege against Sumerian Queen – Rift between British Museum and Iraqi Government over Plunder of Puabi_.

There had been a big hoo-hah on the breakfast news about some theft from the exhibition of Queen Puabi currently on display, loaned by the Iraqi Government, at least as much as there was one in the benighted country after ten years of American 'reconstruction'. He hadn't got to see any more because Sherlock had come bursting in like a talking tornado and they'd spent the remainder of the day fed up and shivering in a series of identikit reeking London back alleys – or rather he had as Sherlock went on and on about haemorrhoid sores manically running from one part of an alley to another muttering incomprehensibly until he'd finally realised the loon was saying _micro hazard spores_, or something similar. He'd been tempted several times to stop Sherlock in his tracks and order him to strip off that coat and jacket so he could check for illicit nicotine patches.

Mycroft flashed a poisonous smile at him as he glided past a few steps towards the stairs, "Ah, the only patriot in the village. Were that others had such _INTEgrity_." The first part of the final word was barked loudly.

Some inner devilment, or part of him that vicariously got off on living dangerously as much as Sherlock did, engaged his mouth without bothering to go through his brain first and spoke at sufficient volume to be clearly heard by both brothers, "It's the frailty of genius."

Mycroft's glide hitched for a moment and he raised one eyebrow in silent query –

_Of course…like either of these two would ever say, 'I'm sorry', or 'excuse me' or 'pardon me,' even as a meaningless social-convention banality_.

"'It needs an audience'."

It appeared his hung for a sheep spirit had kicked in good style because his mouth didn't stop after delivering that little jab, "I've been told –" there was no need to specify who by – "that's why Jeff the serial killing cabbie _wasn't _the genius he thought he was; why he lived as a _law-abiding_ psychopath for so many years - Innovative enough to be an undetectable serial killer, pedestrian enough to _not _want to get caught. For any real genius, it's only about the _audience_, nothing about the _art_ – and a queen and country that have both been dead for three thousand years just can't hack it in the admiring audience category."

"Indeed," again with Mycroft's trademark thin, insincere flash-smile or tooth-baring lip peel-back…depending how you chose to interpret his movement of facial muscles. "Never mind, I shall request assistance from Scotland Yard's finest. I have no doubt the inestimable DI Lestrade will forego his youngest daughter's music recital in the face of the call of duty…honour and patriotism."

_I wouldn't, for the sake of some bauble the NAM got stolen because they cut corners and tried to do security on the cheap to milk the cash cow more...again._ But still, remembering Lestrade's sclerotic red-capilliaried eyes this morning, he'd do his best.

So: "Tell Greg it's the military man."

"The military man?" Mycroft glanced down at the file tucked under his arm in a seemingly autonomic reflex; _yeah right, like he couldn't enunciate every syllable in it if he was blindfold, trussed up like a Christmas goose and deep frozen. _

"Whichever one is ex-military in your pool of suspects – board of trustees, whoever's gallery director now..." because Miss Wenceslas had resigned as a matter of 'honour' following the Fake Vermeer expose.

In his opinion she shouldn't have been given the option of anything other than being frogmarched into police custody, since her - figuratively - getting in bed with Moriarty for money to bilk thirty million out of the British public had led directly to the murders of the museum security guard _and_ poor Professor Cairns, whose family believed she had died instantly and painlessly from an undiagnosed heart condition causing SADS – Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. Miss Wenceslas's greed had also led indirectly to himself wearing a suicide bomber vest and having to recite James Moriarty's insane and inane drivel. If the tamped down fury on Lestrade's face had been any indication when the Met Commissioner had stuck his oar in to let the bitch scuttle off despite being guilty of criminal stupidity if nothing else, he'd been firmly in the John Watson camp of opinion too.

"Why ex-military?" Mycroft enquired.

"In his book, _A Brief History of Time_, Bill Bryson explains how 99 percent of all life on earth is unknown to science and how geologically the Earth is actually tearing along at a hundred miles an hour only we can't feel it." _And that honest admission is probably why I was so susceptible to considering the genuine existence of a demonic hound – there are more things in heaven and earth than either of you two have dreamt of, Holmes boys, and the more I hang around you two the more likely I am to get mauled and mangled by one of them…_

"_Fasc_inating…"

Did he practice that look – and tone – of supercilious impatience in the mirror? Probably…"That means in terms of time there are _millions_ of historical and archaeological sites, big and small, all over the world, only a few _thousand_ of which have been found, and even then usually only by accident. Geological activity means most of the undiscovered sites – or officially unknown - are inaccessible or dangerous to get at."

"A plausible hypothesis, I'd agree."

He shrugged. "That mess with the ancient Empress's hairpin – people like General Shan might have excelled in a boardroom negotiating the sale of plundered artefacts to amoral private collectors, but when it came to the sharp end of looting her country's heritage for profit not patriotism she was as much use as a fridge in a snowstorm. You need 'professional survivors' used to sweating our way through steaming jungle or shivering in minus fifty below for longer than a minute – Bear Grylls, not Bill Oddie. If you don't have someone who can tell a tomb from a temple you end up with your ancient relic in tiny shards on the floor and your swagman a gory corpse. You need Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, not David Starkey and Tony Robinson."

Mycroft blinked slowly at him in a manner that somehow managed to convey a sense of astonishment, like he was a man who'd just been addressed by a talking animal – an animal that spoke the Queen's English and _made sense_ as well, "An admirable supposition, Doctor; would that it were the case. However, none of the Museum Board has any military connections at all."

"Ah," _that explains a lot about their incompetence at any rate and how Sherlock was able to get a detailed eyeful of the fake Vermeer just by being a kid playing dress up and strolling in the front door._

He let Mycroft walk down the staircase to the front hall before he said, "And the caretaker?"

Mycroft stopped and slowly turned back around like a wind-up-clock hour-chimer that needed a bit of oil or WD40, "The caretaker?"

"Jeff the serial killing cabbie picked Kerr College as his killing ground because he knew anyone could wander inside at will. There are five groups who can be invisible in plain sight: Cabbies, _cleaners_, kiddies; the homeless and hookers. They can all be present, but never there - unless they want to be."

"I see…although I 'm not sure the _New England Journal of Medicine_ would include _children_ in a list of those who might be _deliberately _psychopathic."

"Tell that to the parents of James Bulger, or Damilola Taylor…or Carl Powers." _Or your mummy and daddy, boys._

"Touché…So…the cleaners?"

"International corporations and super-rich individuals spend a fortune on cutting-edge technology and access controls, but the janitorial staff can wander around at will and have more access-all-areas than anyone except for and sometimes including the CEO. A Mrs Mop looking like she's on the minimum wage trundling around the building with a wheeled bucket at will is just as invisible as Jeff in his taxicab. If the caretaker's ex-military…"

Mycroft, however, tilted his head and looked at him as if he were a butterfly pinned to a display board, "A cogent paradigm, but I find myself surprised that you are so ready to cry '_j'accuse_' a fellow officer of putting profit before patriotism."

"If this were a country that honoured heroes, I wouldn't be. If the UK were a country where cleaners and teachers, and soldiers and dustbin men earned a hundred grand a week and premiership footballers, bankers and MPs did the job for minimum wage out of a sense of vocation I wouldn't need to. But this is a country where the likes of Simon Weston and Ben Parkinson gave everything bar their lives in the service of their country, and their only reward was a _So long and thanks for all the fish_ letter from some Whitehall pen-pusher that amounts to '_ta muchly, now do be a good chap and clear off, you're making the place look untidy_.'"

The words hung in the air, sharp shards of slicing truth like broken glass.

Before Mycroft could make any unwisely supercilious comment along the lines of '_mayhap the voice of experience, Doctor?' _– which it was - or the total 'listening' silence from in the living room be rashly broken by Sherlock, as usual, engaging his mouth before his brain, both of which would provoke the _other _John, that deep, dark, tamped down and held in John, he got a grip on the righteous anger; there was no point – it bounced off these two like a rubber ball and he only finished up upsetting himself.

"Tell Greg: John says, if the caretaker at the NAM is former military, and especially if he's _new to the job_ and has no family or friends he's close to, look at him first."

Mycroft actually gave him a tiny nod but voiced his scepticism, "But, surely, a military man would know better than to risk taking up thieving."

The scornful chuckle came out as a snort, and louder than he intended but he found himself strangely energised by being the one able to do the grand 'reveal' for a change. "What _risk_?"

"Arrest, police, court, jail – any combination thereof," suggested Mycroft slightly snippily.

He allowed another scornful snort, a little more controlled. "Like I said, _what _risk?"

He leaned slightly against the balustrade to ease his leg; there was no need for anyone, especially these two, to know that the entire right side of his body had taken a bit of a ding at Kandahar, even though the only bullet to hit him had been his shoulder – if you didn't count shrapnel and IED fragments as bullets, in which case he _wasn't _carrying around a couple of 'extra pounds' he'd never lose.

_Are you standing comfortably, then I'll begin:_ "If the caretaker is over thirty and has a rank higher than Lieutenant, that means the military is his _career _not his job, which in turn means that his being back in the UK with a new Civvie Street job as the caretaker at NAM is not by his choice." _And I can tell you in minute detail just how much that eats you up inside until you want to trash the whole world…or yourself…_

_Focus, John. _"Being the new caretaker also meant he got a guided one-to-one tour of all the building's vulnerabilities by a bored rent-a-cop security guard. He'd just pull a couple of 'car alarm' stunts – two or three false alerts in the first fortnight because he'd forgotten his access code, pulled open this door or pushed that one and the security guard will just ignore the next alarm. Especially if he gets a cheerful _'sorry!'_ warbling through his walkie-talkie he won't even get out of his chair, never mind go and check. The caretaker's got time to steal half the museum and sell the stuff for scrap value without breaking a sweat."

Mycroft pursed his lips, and slightly canted his head as he revealed slowly, "As it happens, it was mentioned in passing that they have recently engaged a new Domestic Service Manager, a thirty-seven year old former _Army Captain_, I believe. But, what if the Met do determine him as the thief?"

"What if they do?" He shrugged back; he had no help but to be a bit autobiographical and hope Mycroft just didn't care enough to pick up on it: "A late thirties Captain-rank means at least two tours in the Sandpit, and Iraq before that _and_ the Second Gulf War _and_ at least a bit of the Balkan genocides in the 1990s before all that. All those tours and that rank at thirty-seven indicates a childless bachelor or long-time divorcée on the fast-track to Major whose main relationships were intra-military and which were lost when he had to leave the service – probably invalided out on a medical discharge. So: no family or friends to notice anything amiss or to sting his conscience with their expectations or to express disappointment in him, or to hold him here."

_Careful, a bit too close to pains best left buried. _"If our caretaker's got half the brains that –" _you and Sherlock think you've got –_ "I give him credit for, he's stashed his several million pounds cut of the theft proceeds in a privacy-respecting place like Singapore or Monte Carlo where you'll never see a penny."

"So we merely wait and see if he – or whoever – cuts and runs."

"No, because he won't run; If Greg Lestrade arrests him he'll come meek as a lamb and stand in the dock in a cheap suit all 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir'. He'll plead guilty, which means an automatic one-third reduction to his sentence, and apart from his refusal to reveal where the money is hidden counting against him, his previous good character will mitigate his sentence – even before we factor in that like the vast majority of criminals in British jails including rapists, paedophiles and murderers, he will be _automatically paroled halfway through _whatever small sentence he does get."

He paused, but Mycroft remained silent and still, looking up at him intently as though examining a specimen under a microscope.

Might as well get hung for two sheep as just one: "At the absolute outside he'll get six years, probably only four, for a non-violent theft and handling stolen goods. To someone who's seen or even been chucked into the hellholes that are Afghani or Iraqi or Serb jails for a terrifying time of daily torture and never knowing if _this_ rattle of the door is the one that will lead to you being shot between the eyes like a stray dog or dragged in front of some video camera and decapitated on YouTube…" _shove it all down, lock it away, John… _"then the luxury spa hotels the UK laughably calls prisons won't be an issue. He'll let his army pension build up a nice nest egg whilst he has a holiday on the taxpayer. So…what with time spent on remand…"

"Typically six to eight months with the judiciary's current backlog," Mycroft advised in an obliging tone, "last year's riots, you see."

"Right, so, say eight months at least pre-trial combined with the fact he'll be a model prisoner versus with how desperate they are for space for real scum like rioters, rapists, murderers, terrorists and people who put out the wrong bin of a day means he'll be paroled on licence within two years – probably even only one - of his trial sentence being handed down. He'll go straight back to his cheap flat and draw out his banked pension money in small cash sums so the probation and dole think he's using it to live on, but he'll live off the land as an urban feral while he changes most of the money in small amounts to a more conducive currency and pays it into an account he's got set up under a false identity, with another bank he picked at random so there's no connection, whose staff are under the impression he's an affluent professional or MEP who travels in and out of the country to and from Europe routinely – Brussels or Strasbourg, most likely."

Mycroft raised his umbrella slightly, "Urban feral?"

"Like foxes and badgers do. If there's just yourself to cater for, you can live in a large town – or preferably city – if you have the skills and stomach for it, without spending any money or at least the bare minimum of expenditure."

He explained, and ticked off on his fingers: "For free warmth, free email, free Internet, free iPlayer-TV, free newspapers and free electricity to charge a smart-phone you spend your days going from library to library. Free breakfast and lunch, go to a large, crowded chain like McDonalds and wait till someone gets up and leaves their Mac and Coke. You sit down and finish it off like you were there along then go to Costa and repeat and then Pret-a-Manger and ditto. Dinner is a soup kitchen or rolling out time at the clubs and those people who lose interest in a takeaway doner kebab after two bites. Fish it out the bin – or just pick the tray up from where Drunk has dropped it on the pavement. People's gardens and allotments will also do for food and clothes, and a quick B and E into an empty houseboat on the river or sneaking into the back of a static caravan on one of the illegal Traveller camps will get you a shower and a shave and a civilised loo and no fear of the police if you're caught soaping your particulars in their caravan."

Mycroft was looking as if he regretted the query; somehow he doubted that the Boy Scouts, or cheery make-do family camping holidays had featured in the childhoods of the Holmes brothers, so time to get back on track, "Anyway, back to our _Playhouse Presents _episode for today: our man's paroled after barely twelve months in the clink. His grossly overworked and underpaid probation officer will soon leave his meek, model parolee to his own devices and focus on dealing with the laundry list of psychotic fourteen-year-old Moriarty in the making 'young offenders'. So then he can sort out details of his sunshine retirement."

"I wait with bated breath, do go on."

_I'd like you to have constricted breath…_"No family to miss him, so he can set up his army pension account for direct debit payments on an empty flat – rent, phone line, utilities. Once that's in place, one day he'll just step out, lock the door and leave the building as his other identity. Get a day-trip foot passenger ticket somewhere less expected – say, ferry to the Isle of Wight, then to Jersey, then to France, then straight on to Monte Carlo via France's nationally subsidised and excellently efficient railway system –"

Oh yes, Mycroft's perpetual prissy look increased, as if someone were winding the giant invisible key to ratchet his spine tighter.

" - Where his properly presented credentials will get him access to his stored funds and _voila_, he gets to spend the rest of his life in comfortable retirement somewhere with warm sun and warmer women, secure in the knowledge it will be years, if ever, before the UK police even notice he's gone anywhere. In fact," he added as the inspiration struck, "I'd say he'll help out another old mucker ex-serviceman supplement his own pitiful pension by letting the bloke live rent free in the flat and putting the bloke on retainer to act for him and _as him _in the UK if necessary should the Metropolis's finest come tramping around in their size sixteen shoes. Two or three years on from now and probably even Greg Lestrade wouldn't be able to be sure whether the bloke giving his name as 'Joe Bloggs' was the same bloke he arrested back in 2012."

Suddenly a bit embarrassed – he'd never spoken so much at one time ever in his entire life and wouldn't be doing it now if Mycroft didn't needle him just by existing – so he shrugged jerkily and finished lamely, "…if I decided I preferred soporific retirement in Hawaii to Mayhem in the Metropolis but I knew _you _pair and Lestrade were after me for my ingenious yet daring heist to fund the move, it's how I would do it."

"Indeed…and where were _you_ on the Tuesday night of the theft?" Mycroft drawled.

"Here, watching telly, with Sherlock."

Mycroft's eyes gleamed with sardonic appreciation of the jibe; the only way Mycroft could expose his blatant lie would be to confess he had his brother and room-mate under surveillance, something he would absolutely not do under any circumstances up to and including a zombie apocalypse or alien invasion within a hundred miles of Sherlock's hearing.

"Hm…I think I shall pay a quick courtesy call at Scotland Yard on the way back to the office." Mycroft decided.

_Oh won't Lestrade love that…_he didn't need to check his watch, as years of practice enabled his time sense to estimate that Lestrade was barely an hour or so into the mountains of paperwork his successful 'collar' of Lewisham the Amberley Crescent killer had no doubt generated –

He snapped back into it as Mycroft deliberately raised his voice to finish, "…worthwhile input, Doctor, perhaps I've been _consulting_ the _wrong _detective," before sliding out of the front door on his merry way.

He went through the door into the living room, which was empty but looked like a hurricane had had a hissy fit in it; Sherlock was clinking his vials and beakers on the exotic apparatus he had on the kitchen table with a tightly coiled over-precision in his movements; his too-defined cheekbones were tinged with red and his mouth was tight.

"Good, you're back, I've been waiting for the milk for –" Sherlock glanced briefly at him during this staccato comment and stopped as he took in the gopher's empty left hand and the gopher's empty right hand. "You went grocery shopping this morning."

"Yeah. Waitrose are going to deliver it in…." he checked his watch, "five minutes."

"Bread and milk were too heavy for you?"

It was a faux question, heavy on the undertone of sarcasm – Sherlock was in a snit and the sidekick had overstepped his role by deducing and deducting _with Mycroft_, just as he had previously solved the case simply by taking a deep breath in a freshly painted room. Sherlock deduced and deducted, John was 'the admiring audience' whose role was to interject such exclamations as 'fantastic!' and 'wow!' periodically. Over and above that, he was the juicy marrow bone the two Holmes' Rottweillers snarled over – _don't I just feel special_.

"It was_ all_ too heavy. I did a full grocery shop, for everything, so I can stock up _my _fridge. That I had delivered _yesterday_," _while you were out all day driving Lestrade mad by inches…_and paid a fortune to have taken up to the second floor as well, "so you can have all the space you need in _your _fridge, for heads, or eyeballs, or severed thumbs. I'll put the kettle on when I come back down."

He went back out and upstairs to the second floor. Sherlock's mulish _moue_ meant he probably had less than a minute…

© 2012, The Cat's Whiskers

All rights reserved

Continued in Chapter 4…

**Author's Notes: (SPOILER AERT!)**

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) was a Dutch painter; up to 66 works have been attributed to him, although only 34 definitively, several of which are categorised as 'lost'. Arguably the most famous is _Girl with a Pearl Earring_, which is currently in the National Gallery in London, and, this authoress can confirm, is an exquisite masterpiece that can be admired-examined for hours without boredom. Later chroniclers had posthumously imputed sexual motives in Vermeer's view of the unknown model, but this is unknown.

Vermeer's second-most-noted painting was probably _The Astronomer_ (1668) which may have been why the producers of _Sherlock_ decided to choose him as the fake-masterpiece in the episode _The Great Game_. SPOILER ALERT! In that episode the security guard (Alex Woodbridge) at the art gallery has no interest in, understanding of or appreciation for art, but is a keen amateur _astronomer_ and realises the Vermeer is a Victorian-era fake because the sky-scape features the 'Van Buren Supernova' (an entirely fictional event) '_which appeared in 1858 and so couldn't have been painted in the 1640s_'.

The British surname Cholmondeley/Cholmondley is pronounced Chum-Lee. There are several words, particularly surnames and place names, in British English which have this idiosyncratic spelling/pronunciation difference. The name Grosvenor is pronounced Grave-Nor. Something ending in 'wich' is pronounced Itch, so Greenwich is pronounced Gren (as in Grenadier, not Green the colour) Itch. However, this does not hold if the 'wich' is preceded by the letter 't' or 'd', so Droitwich and Nantwich and Sandwich are pronounced Droyt-witch, Nant-witch and Sand-witch. Words than in 'worth' are pronounced 'uth' so Rainworth and Blidworth are Ren-uth and Bliduth; words ending in wark and walk are pronounced 'ack' so Southwark is Suthack. Sometimes the pronunciations do not follow logic, for example, the word _lieu_ as in 'he got a car in lieu of a cash payment', is pronounced loo, but lieutenant is pronounced left-tenant. In the USA, both lieu and lieutenant are pronounced as loo-tenant.

This does hold true for other languages – for example, in Polynesian Hawaiian, the 'w' letter _within_ a word, such as Hawaii and Halawa and Ka'wica is pronounced as a 'V': Havaii, Halava, Ka'vika. In the pilot of the 2010 'reimagined' _Hawaii 5-0_, the character of Chin Ho Kelly (played by Daniel Dae Kim, who actually lives on Maui in Hawaii) correctly pronounced the island's name as 'welcome to Ha-Vy-ee'. In the series, although the characters randomly alternate between Hawaii and Havaii, they correctly pronounce other words such as Halawa as Halava. However, if the word starts with a 'W' then it is pronounced as a 'W', for example _Waikiki_ is Why-key-key. In Greek, the same Cyrillic letters are written differently when in CAPITALS to when in lower case, so Sherlock would be Σέρλοκ and SHERLOCK would be ΣΕΡΛΟΚ**.**

Sancho Panza was the faithful friend of the eponymous lead character in the novel _Don Quixote_ (1605), pronounced Ki-hoe-tay not Quicks-oaty. It was written by Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) – Don is not a name, but an aristocratic title, like Duke, or Lord – and the author is often known simply as _Cervantes_. In Spanish genealogy, the child is given the father's surname and then the mother's surname, Throughout the novel, Sancho periodically 'breaks the fourth wall' by interpolating the story with expository narrative (i.e., explaining to the reader what is going on). This fiction method was actually invented by Cervantes and the TV equivalent would be something like the TV series _Moonlighting_, starring a young Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd, where the lead characters would break off the scene, turn to camera and directly address the audience.

Sancho Panza was arguably the first or one of the first examples of the 'sidekick' character, practical to Don Quixote's idealism, the Everyman faithful companion who cares about and as necessary cares for his friend. When everyone else ridicules, persecutes, harasses and abandons Don Quixote for his belief in chivalry, honour, manliness, integrity, etc., Sancho is ever caring and loyal.

Often the sidekick provides exposition (explains what's going on) and can be easier for the reader/viewer to relate to than the 'hero' whom may be unlikeable (Dr Watson whom we all like to Sherlock Holmes who is irascible, arrogant and aloof) or too heroic to measure up to – for example, think of Michael Hurst as Iolaus (sidekick) to Kevin Sorbo as the demi-god Hercules in _Hercules: The Legendary Journeys_, or Scott Caan as Danny Williams – brave, heroic but an Everyman cop – to Alex O'Loughlin's brave but super-heroic US Navy SEAL Man Plus – in _Hawaii 5-0_.

An epicure or epicurean (lower-case) is one who pursues **'sensory'** bodily pleasures, particularly those related to fine food and drink, plus bodily comforts; not to be confused with the pursuit of **'sensual'** bodily pleasures, although sexual promiscuity can be an element in epicureanism. The philosophy of Epicureanism (capital E) is the source of the saying, _'eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.'_ (See below).

The sensory bodily comforts would not so much be sensual (sexual) pleasures but sensory – an epicure in terms of physical comforts would wear only silk or the most expensive cashmere, only have bedding made out 1500knot Egyptian cotton or solid oak furniture or genuine slate/parquetry floors and so forth.

An epicure (non-capitalised) is derived from Epicureanism as founded by Epicurus a Greek philosopher about 300BC. Epicurus' philosophy was that physical pleasure was the sole way to achieve enlightenment, but did not advocate base gratification of the senses, '_whom a person ate with was of greater importance than what was eaten_'. However, the high ideal was rapidly subsumed as the philosophy spread so that gluttony, alcoholism and refusing to accept anything less than the 'finest things in life' became hallmarks of an epicurean.

In the Bible New Testament [Christian Greek Scriptures] book of Acts Chapter 17 verse 18, the writer Luke recounts how the Apostle Paul was teaching about Christianity at the Areopagus in Athens in around 40AD, but that, '_certain ones of both the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers took to conversing with him controversially, and some would say, "'What is it this chatterer would like to tell?'" whilst others, "'He seems to be a publisher of foreign gods,'" because he was declaring the Good News of Jesus and the Resurrection from the dead.'_ About a decade later in 50AD, the Apostle Paul quoted the famous Epicurean maxim in 1st Corinthians Chapter 15, verses 32 – 34 (bold italics mine): '…_daily I face death…If, like _[other] _men I have fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, of what good is it to me? If the dead are not to be _[resurrected back to life on Earth], _**'let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we are to die.'**__ Do not be misled. Bad associations spoil useful habits. Wake up to _[seriousness] _in a righteous way and do not practise sin, for some are without knowledge of God. I am speaking to move you all to shame._'

British archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered the Tomb of the Akkadian/Sumerian (ancient pre-Babylonian) 'queen' or 'high priestess' Puabi at the 'royal cemetery' of the City of Ur in 1922. In addition to the large amount of excellent quality, well-preserved funerary items, the tomb had somehow escaped being looted and was therefore physically and religiously/socially 'intact' in context. Her 'grave goods' included no less than 52 poisoned slaves – either suicides or homicides – a solid gold 'royal' headdress, and an abundance of gold, silver and semi-precious stone objects. The Tomb's contents were divided between the British Museum, the University of Pennsylvania Museum in America and the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad – several pieces of the Iraqi collection were looted following the Second Gulf War of 2003.

© 2012, The Cat's Whiskers

All rights reserved


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer and etc.:**__ See Chapter 1_

**Holmesian Logic**

**Part I**

**Chapter 4**

His own door was open and he went straight over to the large bread tin containing his 'yes it is a Zombie Apocalypse _now_' flight-fund contingency measures. The best place to hide what you didn't want others to see usually was in plain sight, which was why the bread tin was nearby to a large biscuit barrel and wall-cupboards.

The tin housed a small compactable backpack containing a military-grade medikit, several expensive top-grade MREs – Meals: Ready to Eat, or combat rations in 'old money' and water purification tablets. It also contained four spare clips for his L9A1 Browning handgun, and more importantly, the laminated original copy of his firearms permit; he had multiple laminated high-resolution colour copies of the permit in virtually every pocket of every item of clothing he owned.

When he'd submitted his application for the Browning, it turned out that the police authority official responsible for approving it was a brother of one Lance-Corporal Alistair Dent, whose life and leg had been saved in Kabul by a certain Army Captain Doctor John H. Watson. As a consequence, the expiry date of the permit read: _Indefinite,_ and permitted not only ownership of a handgun but 'concealed carrying about the person', something usually granted only to the Met's elite SO19 Armed Response Unit and foreign diplomatically immune bodyguards such as the US Secret Service and suchlike.

Of course, it helped his case that the Browning was so quintessentially a British Army weapon, and not some flash Hollywood Gangsta aping Beretta, Smith & Wesson or Glock. Besides, along with his dad and Harry, he'd held handgun, shotgun and hunting rifle licences since he was knee high to nothing, so by the time he reached secondary school age he'd long since been an experienced crack shot winning several Junior Pistol Shooting and Rifle Marksmanship competitions, so his name had been in the 'approval' registers for years without incident.

He picked up the Browning now, testing that comforting weight in his palm; since – well okay – since Sherlock had embarrassed him by remembering to bring _his _gun _for him _to Vauxhall Arches when they'd charged Golem – he'd tried to make sure to take the handgun whenever Sherlock hared off out dragging him along on the latest barmy case. He _should _have had the sense to have it with him when those CIA scum had caught him off guard in Irene Adler's house – he doubted she had ever considered any place 'home'. He could have ducked back into the doorway or got off a shot to warn Sherlock and Adler something was amiss. He could have shot the game-playing ice-bitch when she jabbed Sherlock full of paralytic sedative – _that _would have brought her cat-and-mouse toying with Sherlock to a juddering halt.

Remembering that unmistakeable feel of a gun-barrel pressing against his spine this morning, he came to a decision – he had no choice but to _always_ take the Browning with him from now on.

What if Sherlock did something stupid again, like when Jeff Hope had nearly goaded him into popping that poison pill because he feared being _bored_ more than he feared being _dead_ – the idiot hadn't known his new room-mate was on his trail – and what would he have done in that horrible second when he realised he'd run into the _wrong _building if he'd not previously had the instinct to call back to his then bed-sit and pick up the Browning?

Or when Sherlock might need it himself, for something like saving both their arses by clearly being willing to put a bullet in the detonator of a discarded explosive bomb vest because whilst it would _almost _certainly kill him and John Watson, it would _certainly_ kill James Moriarty, standing barely a foot away from it, too.

Oh yes, that moment…it had _almost_, _almost_ been worth it, to see the smirk on Moriarty's reptilian face fade, that brief but detectable twitch of fear on Jimmy-Jim's chops as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson smiled at him like Dobermans eyeing up a raw rump steak, and clearly not giving a damn about the multiple dancing laser dots. _Yeah, get one of your arsehole snipers to fire, mate, and let the wonders of autonomic reflex make a fireball the last thing you see as Sherlock's nervous system death-spasm pulls that trigger and booooom!_

Had one of those laser-dot divas been Seb? Being arguably HM Forces best sniper at the time had been how Seb was tapped for British Special Forces _first _in their long history of personal 'frenemy' rivalry and how Seb had skipped up to _Major _whilst he, career military himself and not exactly on a slow boat to China rank wise, had been invalided out at a similar age as a _Captain. _

He had no idea who had called with the world's most impeccable timing, causing Moriarty to slither away like the snake he was, but if Seb had been up there in the gods somewhere pointing a sniper rifle at him and Sherlock, Seb would have realised the error Moriarty had made in coming back to gloat and _also_ been familiar enough with the mind-set, motives and ability to act of one John H. Watson for Seb to realise that his ex-best-friend had already worked out how to save Sherlock and himself from death, albeit not injury, whilst having the satisfaction of watching Moriarty get vaporised in the process…

But next time…and unfortunately when you were dealing with a psychopath like Moriarty and a sociopath like Sherlock – _don't I just feel special _– there would always be a next time…Just like he hadn't been the slightest bit surprised to hear Sebastian Moran's voice in his ear this morning. The brutal fact was he'd been lucky so far, but Lady Luck was a cruel and capricious lover who would adore you right up to the moment she suddenly left you sat naked in the dirt as she roared away in a metaphorical Porsche laughing her arse off at the moment you needed her the most. Lady Luck's much nicer and more reliable sister Prudence left no option but to _Bodie and Doyle_ up.

Placing it back and making a note to clean it tonight, he placed yet more bank notes to the stash in the backpack, a small amount he kept from Mrs Olegenski's retainer. Small denominations, used notes and two or three currencies – Euros, dollars and pounds sterling – which would cover most eventualities; in another location, far across town, there was an allotment with a shed, with a lockbox secreted in the five-brick-high slab plinth the water butt rested on.

That box contained a similar backpack, which also contained the same type of supplies as this, with the addition of a fake passport and a fake gun permit for a Derringer pistol in another name, the same name under which the allotment, chosen at random during a brief period of home leave over ten years ago now, had been rented out. A retired, elderly former NCO supplemented his old age pension by making use of the allotment, and had all the produce to eat or sell on. He was reasonably confident it was one of the few things Mycroft didn't know about his life, but he wouldn't bank on it absolutely. That box was for the 'apocalypse of the apocalypse' disaster and if he ever needed to use that…well…

Any second now Sherlock was going to start, but…he couldn't help but grin at his fridge – tall, shiny, six shelves plus a mini 'freezer' shelf up top. Not white either, but shiny silver-grey…_thanks Mrs Humphrey_.

Originally the second floor of this wealthy Victorian London townhouse had been two large bedrooms and a slightly smaller 'lady's dressing room' antechamber, with a short flight of steps up into a sloping roofed attic that had two small proud windows and was designed to sleep three or four housemaids on tiny metal beds. Ironic, that the family's servants had had the best view of London, not their employers. It was also part of the reason why Sherlock didn't like this floor – correction, didn't like his live-in blogger J. H. Watson being up on the second floor.

At some point years back the cramped attic had been refitted with small wardrobes and drawers for clothing, plus one small pull-out sofa bed, presumably for an 'emergency guests' type situation. During one of their daytime TV sessions, Mrs Hudson had told him about how she had the interior wall between the two bedrooms removed to make one large, open plan bedroom come-sitting room, which was very nice, with a small kitchenette sink/worktop/cupboards in one corner and plenty of room for a big bed and side tables in the bedroom and then a settee, TV, table and chairs, bookshelves, etc in the other half of the room as the wardrobes were up in the attic. Even better, there was a connecting door in the bedroom into the bathroom, so if he wanted he could keep the landing door to the bathroom permanently locked and access everything bar the attic just by walking into his second floor living room.

Above all, in the 1920s, Mrs Hudson's grand-uncle, clearly a genius, had gone to town on the lady's antechamber and turned it into a bathroom heaven…a huge, solid cast iron three-corner bath that must weigh a ton took pride of place with massive brass and porcelain twist taps that gurgled and spurted and splurged water into the tub in a way that you just knew was metaphorically sticking two fingers up at anything and anyone of the 'eco-mental' ilk.

The tiled floor was spacious enough to disco dance across until you reached the wash basin, again genuine porcelain, which was large enough to accommodate a baby elephant, and had a three-sided adjustable mirror with it. A porcelain bidet – something that would have been thrillingly risqué in terms of interior décor in the 1920s - discreetly hugged the wall between said bath and basin. The thing – not that he had actually checked but he had _noticed _- even had a mirror hidden directly below the plug hole in the French _bordello _style so you could check _every bit _of your equipment was A-Okay whilst you were performing your ablutions. And finally a toilet that deserved the appellation of throne resided resplendent and unashamed of it in one corner – large, ornate porcelain, with solid honeybeam wood seat and brass hinges – and one of those old fashioned lever flushes that you pulled like a slot machine.

Mrs Hudson, recognising this familial genius, had honoured it by making no changes and installed nothing else other than a modern 'ultra' walk-in-sit-down glass cubicle shower that did all sorts of snazzy steam/aromatherapy things. Initially her intention had been to make the second floor 221D, a discrete flat in its own right, but had had to keep it as the upper floor of flat 221B because of the layout. Unlike on the second floor, when you walked up to the first floor, the first door went into the living room and kitchen of 221B, but putting a door in the dividing wall of the living room for Sherlock would have it opening out into his bathroom.

Whoever rented 221B on the first floor had to walk out of the living room onto the landing to go 'next door' to their bedroom and bathroom, which meant anyone going up to or down from the second floor had to go via the first floor landing – technically walking 'through' the first floor flat. Since Mrs Hudson had a direct outside door to her flat of 221A behind _Speedy's _in the yard accessible from the side alley, and there was a separate back garden door at the rear to the unoccupied basement flat of 221C, the inside door along the hallway on the ground floor could technically be left locked all the time to give the occupant of 221B proper privacy as of course 221B's tenant could come through the front door off of Baker Street.

After Moriarty had fled the swimming pool and the CIA assassins had broken in to grab Mrs Hudson, and Irene Adler had turned up to indulge in sex talk with Sherlock – while he sat cringing two feet away from them, thanks for nothing - he had made it habit to check both the front door and the interior ground floor connecting door were both locked before he went up to his bedroom, or more often than not, ended up dropping to sleep in the first floor living room armchair while keeping Sherlock company. It was only a psychosomatic 'comfort and protection' because unless they moved to somewhere really secure like a nuclear bunker, there were way too many points of access – PoVs or 'Points of Vulnerability' as Special Forces termed them - for the mad the bad and completely crazed to gain entry, but it made him feel better.

"_Johnnn_!"

Yes, there it was – oh, one minute three seconds. _The frailty of genius_…exactly why Sherlock didn't like this floor, or rather didn't like it when 'the sidekick' came up here, because if said sidekick wanted, he could exist quite comfortably up here, with a little work desk for his laptop and plenty of light and 'facilities' – and coming up two flights of stairs every day was certainly doing wonders for his cardio – but then Sherlock wouldn't have an _audience_.

Nor would Sherlock have someone's laptop at hand to steal, or someone to send texts for him, or make 'them' a cup of tea, or any of the other myriad tiny ways Sherlock found to 'test the boundaries' of their relationship to reassure himself that he remained pre-eminent on John's priority list.

Mike Stamford was the latest person to suggest he shouldn't become 'known' as an associate of Sherlock Holmes for too long a period or…more than once, he'd been tempted to abandon Baker Street and take up Mike's hints of a professorial lecturer position at Bart's, or a research fellowship at its new Blizard Institute – he was fairly certain Welbeck Military College would co-subsidise his tenure in either role, particularly given his unorthodox surgical experience that the Blizard Institute would eagerly make use of – merely for the entertainment value of seeing Sherlock's reaction.

But it wouldn't ever happen – had he put the Browning back into the tin and the lid on? Yes, he had.

"_Jooohn!_"

"Yes!" _sir, no sir, three bags full sir_. "Coming!"

Not that there would be any opposition on Sherlock's part – his pride extremely healthy ego would prevent him from sabotaging John's move. But Mycroft would scupper the deal, purely for his own personal convenience – having a live-in Igor on hand to run interference for Sherlock with real, normal people – and clean up after him - was just too useful to Mycroft Holmes right now, and for the foreseeable future…

And, possibly, for an even Higher Power…he made sure never to bring up Irene Adler and her damn camera-phone, but just before they'd got pulled into that whole devil dog of Dartmoor thing with the Baskerville base, he and Sherlock had had a bit of row on top of him smarting from his most recent attempt of trying and failing to get back in with Jeannette the teacher, who had been the latest in a revolving door of women who dumped him thirty seconds after exposure to Sherlock, who was shaping up to be to John H. Watson's love-life what Kryptonite was to Superman. He should never have brought her to the flat last Christmas.

Leaving their rooms to cool off before he did something he didn't regret, like demonstrating his unarmed combat _military training_ on Sherlock's assorted pressure points, he had actually gone to Bart's and blagged that _'Mike Stamford was going to leave an application form for me.' _

Mike at been at that Cardiology conference at the time, so he'd walked off his pique by going to Mrs Rabani's for a much needed brew. Putting his hand in his pocket for his wallet his fingers had touched a piece of paper; pulling it out, he opened up the thick, expensive but plain notepaper upon which had been handwritten a message, stating that his discretion in the matter of the delicate situation of Belgravia was noted and appreciated – his blog, the 'Murder That Wasn't' had been only about the hiker accidentally killed by his own boomerang, he had mentioned nothing to do with Irene Adler, as the whole thing had had a D-notice slapped on it and to be honest, it would be many decades if ever before the public and even half of officialdom, not to mention the U.S. Government, was ready to deal with that can of worms.

But the next paragraph also said that his actions in defusing the argument between _'Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes in our very own sitting room'_ had also been noted, and appreciated – _the unhappy relations between our dear friend Mycroft and his brother have been a source of sadness to us for some time. We note that you appear to be able to ameliorate the tensions between them and facilitate at least civil conversation between them in your presence, and would be most desirous that you should continue this good influence._

The note was unsigned and when he pulled it out of his pocket again barely fifteen minutes later after wracking his memory in a failed attempt to determine when it had been slipped into his pocket – it was by then entirely blank. Something told him all efforts to reactivate the ink or show what had been written would be futile. As a precaution, when he had returned to the house and found Sherlock out, he had thrown it onto the hearth and made sure it burned completely away. But it was abundantly clear that he wasn't going to be allowed to withdraw from this game, at least not right now.

Sherlock stood in the doorway of the living room, 'resplendent' in a pair of turquoise pyjamas and a heavy brocade silk dressing gown with one of those thick gold-coloured tasselled thread belts that looked like a curtain-tie back. All he needed was a 'wee Willie Winkie hat' and he would look just like Alistair Sim in that old _Scrooge_ film or John Laurie as Corporal Frazer the Walmington-on-Sea undertaker in _Dad's Army_.

Sherlock opened _that_ mouth and with timing he might have to hug the delivery bloke for, the doorbell rang. _Waitrose, I love you_.

It was indeed a man from a van, with two large bags and a sign-sheet. There came a faint creak and he knew without looking that Sherlock had ventured out onto the landing and was copying his own trick from earlier, leaning against the balustrade. He made a mental note to check the banister spindles and repair/replace any weakening ones – the staircase balustrade was solid wood, excellently crafted by some long-dead Victorian who understood the concept of pride-in-his-workmanship, and no doubt, counted as some 'worth a fortune antique' in its own right, but all the time, money, effort and energy the mad bad and dangerous to know put in to trying to do in Sherlock Holmes, it would be a pity if a broken neck courtesy of a random, accidental plunge through a broken banister did for them.

"Did you get the beans?" a voice drawled in a tone that suggested John could barely be trusted to walk and talk at the same time.

"Yes."

"…beans – with - _sausages_." Sherlock clarified very precisely as if this had been an instruction he'd had to repeat many times.

"Yes." _And I may shortly be battering you to death with the four-pack of tins_.

"And the tea?"

"Yes."

"The loose-leaf tea, not the bags –"

"Ye-eh-es." He signed the declaration that he had received his groceries in good order and the correct items, returning the van driver's sympathetic look with a wry smile.

"Thankyousir, _mind you them cheekbones 'r' good enough t' make up for a multitude o' sins_."

"Well he's done a multitude of sins," he didn't resist murmuring back, unsure whether he had been meant to hear the _sotto voce_ comment or not.

But since everyone else on the planet seemed to make blithe 'assumptions' about their exact relationship without bothering about the actual reality, he would never have time to do anything else if he challenged and corrected every single innuendo, implication, hint, assumption, assertion, arch query or rude question (the last of which he always responded to with a blunt 'none of your business') about the exact 'physical nature' of his and Sherlock's relationship. Did the fact that he had once put Sherlock in a stranglehold headlock because the twit had unprovoked punched him in the face, triggering an auto-reflex attack response from a _decorated combat veteran officer, Sherlock you idiot – _count as a physical relationship?

But the driver gave him a surreptitious wink and an arch smile as he left. He suspected ordering online from _Waitrose_ from now on would be a good thing in terms of the odd freebie finding its way into a carrier bag. Picking up both said carrier bags he went back up to the first floor, and left the upstairs carrier on the landing and went inside to the kitchen where the kettle, wonder of wonders, was on the hob – there were two, a modern electric one that you put on a central connection and an old copper one you boiled on a hob plate, which Sherlock seemed to prefer, although he suspected that Sherlock also used it to boil/simmer some of his more dubious experiments; as Greg Lestrade had wryly commented once, '_coming here for tea is like winning one of those TV-show fan visits to the set of Dexter'_.

"Move some of that stuff, so I can make breakfast."

"Excellent…Eggs as well, I think." It was said with blithe, 'let's pretend my obnoxious older brother was never here' cheer.

He didn't mind in principle – after all that would be hypocrisy, because for many similar reasons, _he_ avoided Harry by way of extensive forward-planning and logistical manoeuvring, helped by the fact that his sister's own medical career – far more high-flying and lucrative than his own - kept her well away from the capital most of the time. There was a whole laundry list of subjects he intended Sherlock to never know anything about, never mind discuss, and Harriet Amelia Watson was top of it...in fact, she was the _top five _of that particular Hit Parade…But it was time to gently poke back a little, to a metaphorically channel a bit of Mrs Hudson: _not your housekeeper, dear_.

He took down the big old frying pan – a proper pan from the days when people cooked their own breakfasts for a furnace-worker hubby and ten kids before school, without hectoring by the nanny state – and the small saucepan, into which he pulled the ring top and emptied the beans and sausages, ready.

Bracing, he opened the fridge door. It said a great deal for Mrs Hudson's resilient nature that she had declared herself to be more traumatised by the plastic bag of severed thumbs she'd found in the salad drawer than those 'horrible, rude Yank goons'. He'd seen the bruises on her wrists, and that cut on her face from CIA Head Honcho's ring-clad fist slapping it.

No matter how much Sherlock might irritate him, he'd be the first in the queue to nominate Sherlock Holmes Esquire for a medal for tossing that tosser out of the first floor window. Greg Lestrade had also shown his sterling qualities by taking in Mrs Hudson's shaky bravado and those tell-tale marks of rough handling and showing a distinct disinclination to pursue the exact sequence of events as to how a foreign national with diplomatic immunity mysteriously fell out of a window whilst trussed up like a Sunday roast chicken.

It wasn't too bad today, although he scrupulously avoided touching anything he knew he hadn't put there himself, and pulled out the butter, milk, sausages, bacon and pot of beef dripping – and last night's leftover potatoes in the dish. He scooped out a small spoonful of the cold re-solidified butter from the potato dish into the frying pan and lit the gas.

He added a bigger dollop of the beef dripping into the beans' saucepan ready for when he needed set it on the lowest heat to gradually warm through – he'd learned _that _culinary lesson that wasn't taught in any cookbook when he'd just met Sarah and her nutritionist Chlöe (who was very particular that yes, the umlaut stayed in her name), well before he met Sherlock Holmes. Chlöe had laughed at him when he declared he'd fallen in love with her 'proper butcher' husband who had sold him a string of proper sausages at a discount, but those sausages had nearly been the death of him, when he'd cut into his quick fried links only to spit out raw, uncooked meat.

One look at his miserable face the next day had had Chlöe rolling her eyes and her husband Craig Reddish had explained his mistake to him – just like drug traffickers 'cut' heroin and coke with other things to make the drug 'go farther' and maximise profits, so too modern commercial food production eked out meat, fish and dairy by bulking it out with 'rusk' – usually ground up wheat kernel or cornflour – gelatine, water, and combinations thereof. The reason supermarket sausages and bacon and 'roasting' meats like chops and chicken cooked within two hours in a 'moderate oven' was because you weren't roasting meat – which was dense flesh – but boiling off water and jelly. Proper food took half again as long to cook through as anything you bought in a supermarket.

In retrospect, he wished he'd had the balls to declare he wanted a commission for the speculative gleam in Craig Reddish's eyes, as nowadays the printed sticky price label on the wrapping had been enlarged to include 'recommended cooking time for this product' on it. Chlöe had told him how her husband's trade had increased once passers-by saw those labelled products in the window, indicating that he hadn't been the only one to stuff up the timing of his treat. But since Craig Reddish not only _looked_ like Lawrence Dallaglio but was built like him _and_ played amateur rugby, he'd held his peace.

As it happened, most of the shopping he'd got from Waitrose had been household cleaning items and salad stuff/vegetables and tinned stuff. Thanks to Mrs Humphrey and company, he could now afford to buy _all _their meat products from Craig Reddish, Chlöe the nutritionist's organic butcher husband, rather than the occasional treat; given supermarket sausages had so much bulking added water and corn rusk you could legitimately label them a vegetable he didn't begrudge a penny. Even better, Chlöe's hubby had shrewdly seen the need to diversify to boost the survival chances of his business and understood his wealthy clientele would and could pay not just for quality, but for the 'exclusivity' of his products.

The enterprising Craig Reddish had used his contacts in the Channel Islands to source proper dairy produce – the delicious dense yellow butter, cheese, and milk products produced from the traditional herds, that he had shipped over daily, and had also obtained a licence to sell curds, whey and 'raw' – unpasteurised – milk, which was more nutritious as the beneficial enzymes were destroyed by the pasteurising process and all of which had been banned or sale-restricted in the UK by the tofu-touting brigade and the vested commercial interests as selling pasteurised milk in a bewildering variety of forms was much faster, cheaper, easier and more profitable to produce via 'factory farming' than producing fresh raw milk because it had to be done properly or not at all.

During that period as Sarah's locum, he'd prescribed several child patients suffering eczema, asthma and the like a diet of Craig Reddish's dairy produce and good red meat, and given their parents a firm talking to on the need to ditch their margarine and skimmed milk (pure profit for the dairies as it was basically water with delusions of grandeur and about as nutritious as gravel) and their low-fat/sugar/salt yoghurts and snacks which were full of artificial sugars/fats/salt and quack quorn diets and give their children real food that had experienced minimum mucking about with between original animal or plant and their plate. Funnily enough with a month all the children had experienced a big improvement in their skin and chest conditions.

He put the butter and milk on the table ready for the tea and toast. The frying pan was just starting to smoke so he quickly popped in the bacon and sausages which sizzled with wonderful 'popping' and 'snapping' of fat molecules – no water, gelatine or white 'froth' leached out of these, the only thing currently in this frying pan was pork, and in a minute he'd add the potatoes.

The marvellous Craig R. had also made contracts with the smallholder Jersey Royal Potato farmers, as well as some in Ireland and on the Cornish coast. The big inland Channel Island potato farmers whose crops would be shipped to the mainland British supermarkets used bog-standard manure on their crop, meaning they lacked flavour and nutrition. The small one-man-band farmers used the centuries old tradition of covering their potato crop with 'wrack' – seaweed – infusing the potatoes with a fabulous flavour and increasing their nutritional content fivefold, as well as negating the need to add any salt.

Craig Reddish's small supplies of freshly harvested Jersey Royal new potatoes, picked that dawn, shipped to London that morning and on sale by 9.00am with the soil still clumped to them, sold amongst the _cognoscenti_ like gold bars. Eaten the same evening as they had been picked, just lightly steamed and smothered in Brittany Butter-with-Sea-Salt-Crystals they were delicious. Allowed to go cold in the dish so the butter re-solidified and then sliced and fried the following morning along with genuine pure-pork sausages and bacon, they went from delicious to the level of orgasmic gastronomy…

In the minute he had, he got the knife and cut thick doorstep slices from the loaf out of the _actual_ bread bin. Craig Reddish's next moment of genius was to realise that his customers wanted their eggs and bread to match their sausage and bacon – in short, they wanted to make the whole meal consist of stuff that tasted great, instead of having amazing sausages but only adequate bread or tasteless tomatoes.

Reddish didn't sell chicken, only proper capon – cockerel – he'd sourced from the same French suppliers of his white veal and horse meat, which was more tender and juicy than hen's meat. Those farmers supplied barn and run-confined hens eggs, which were healthier and less dangerous than free-range eggs, and to complement that, he'd got in touch with a couple of niche bakeries in Kent and Norfolk, and every morning at six o'clock received deliveries of big, round loaves of bread – slow-baked in wood-burning stone ovens, flour, yeast, salt and water only bread that was soft and nutty to the taste and which lasted several days. Craig Reddish now sold everything with small A5 recipe leaflets that were free and he was able to charge a fortune – just before he'd been able to leave being a locum at Sarah's surgery thanks to Mrs du Lac and Mrs Humphrey and Mrs Olegenski, Chlöe had cheerfully let slip that her husband earned a third more a year than she did, simply from shrewdly maintaining the artisan quality of his butcher's shop whilst simultaneously diversifying into complementary products.

"Oi, here," he took the two old brass toasting forks off the wall and speared the bread slices. "You're on tea and toast duty. You know I like mine golden brown."

"Warm bread," Sherlock's lip curled but he took the toasting forks and glided to the hearth, which he had actually banked up and now had a small fire in the grate – although probably only because, as usual, he was padding about in his bare bony feet that had gotten cold. One of these days he was going to get a nasty cut.

But Sherlock handled the forks expertly and turned the bread carefully; and if asked, he could probably explain scientifically why food like meat and bread always tasted much better when cooked over an open flame than in a modern gas oven. Grandmother Hamish, who had lived to be a hundred and six in her own home, had never cooked on anything other than what had been left in her long-deceased mother-in-law's kitchen from the day she married Grandfather Hamish and moved onto his father's farm: a mediaeval era spit-roasting hearth, an ancient wood-burner stove in the corner and a temperamental old range that took up most of one wall. The eternal furnace heat of her kitchen had heated the entire house far better than any 'central heating' malarkey and the superlative taste of her food had been legend for a hundred miles in every direction.

In went the cold potatoes and butter and sizzled, oh yes. The beans were simmering nicely, the dripping thickening the too-thin sauce so it clogged properly and finally – _crack, crack _– a fried egg each; he used the spatula to coat the yolk with fat, but took them up first – he and Sherlock both liked dip; he couldn't abide a hard-yolk fried egg. Splitting the bacon, sausage and potatoes around the eggs on each plate he'd kept warm in the grill, he spooned on the cloggy beans and sausages as Sherlock, with debonair flourish, put the toasted slices on the table bread board.

They sat down, Sherlock pouring the tea and adding milk for them, raising an eyebrow when John, who did not take sugar, dropped a brown sugar cube in his tea and then another with no apparent indication of stopping…four…five. He began to stir vigorously as Sherlock took a sip of his own tea without comment but speculation flared in his eyes.

He didn't care what Sherlock thought; after the morning he'd had, it was a five sugar cube problem – and better than nicotine patches. He needed the glucose rush and this had always been his sure-fire and absolutely legal way to self-stimulate…his idiosyncratic – some would say adverse – reaction to refined sugars had been well-noted by his family by the time he was three.

There was the time seven-year-old Harry Watson had got her bottom and the back of her legs reddened with several well-deserved smacks to physically match how she'd been caught metaphorically red-handed feeding her brother the entire two trays of Auntie Marcia's sugar-puff mini bites, after everyone _knew_ John was expressly forbidden refined sugars. He hadn't eaten, drunk, slept or stopped moving for the next 60 hours straight, and when they were both in their teens and their relationship continued its relentless downward spiral, Harry had more than once declared the spanking had been a price well worth paying for the entertainment value of watching her younger brother quite literally bounce, burble, jitter and jigger for three days without pause. At least social media hadn't been around then – he had no doubt whatsoever Harry would have filmed the lot and be earning sixty thousand a year from it via YouTube™ when it went 'viral' or whatever.

He would just have to hope Sherlock didn't hit on the idea that turnabout was fair play and decide that John needed an intervention regarding his sugar habit as he himself had pulled on Sherlock over having 'given up' cigarettes – although they were entirely different situations…he'd come downstairs to find Sherlock bouncing off the walls and wearing _eight _nicotine patches _simultaneously _for goodness sake.

Instead of commenting, Sherlock thickly buttered his toast and sliced it up, dipping it in his golden yolk with evident satisfaction.

He hid his own satisfaction as he ate. When he'd first met Sherlock, it hadn't registered that when they'd been watching for Jeff Hope at Northumberland Place, nor that morning in the café with the Connie Prince murder, that Sherlock hadn't actually _eaten_ or even drunk anything. At the time he had still been wavering between _this is brilliant_ and _I've got to get out of here_. But he'd finally remembered overhearing Sherlock's declaration: _I never eat when I'm working, digestion delays deduction!_

Now that might be fine for a case the man solved in eight seconds, as per Irene Adler's encrypted 'Bond Air' email, but he had quickly realised that a lot of Sherlock's cases lasted at least two or three days, if not a week or more. Those sharply defined cheekbones the supermarket van driver so admired were _not _a good sign.

Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food – Moriarty and his mind games – the sicko's over-the-top histrionics like press-ganged suicide bombers and secret snipers, and yet Moriarty had no clue all he had to do was come up with a puzzle of such involved complexity that it would take Sherlock _four _weeks to solve it.

A hungry man ate fast, without tasting. A _really_ hungry man ate slowly, with small bites, with each morsel of food held on his tongue as if to reassure his taste buds and his entire body and mind that it was real and solid and not illusory. Sherlock ate slowly, with measured precision and total focus on his plate.

Psychoanalysts would have enough with that quirk alone to keep them going for decades of psychobabble and counter-babble about the Holmes brothers: Mycroft, apparently morbidly obese at least once before in his life and now a yo-yo dieter, and Sherlock self-starving to the point of malnutrition every other week or so. Yeah, like there wasn't a decade worth of therapy needed there alone.

Which was why it was important to get as much real food – unpackaged, unprocessed, unrefined, straight from the field-and-beast to the plate – into Sherlock, and himself to a lesser extent, when he could. If he himself needed real, properly prepared food over 'quick' chemical/fat/salt and _sugar _laden modern convenience food so as to avoid a life lived in constant sugar-overload mania, he could only imagine – unfortunately as a doctor, only too well - what regular fasting combined with multiple nicotine patches were doing to His Personal Idiot's physical health and central nervous system, never mind whatever substances Sherlock had once used to or chose to continue to ingest.

He knew of, and knew, more than a few who had been 'functional addicts' for most of their adult lives; people who operated for months, years, decades, a lifetime, whilst also being addicted to some narcotic, or alcohol, or legal stimulant. Hell, like Dad had admitted to him, the Watson family had three ancient traditions – the practice of medicine, military service, and functional alcoholism, quite often a lifetime of all three together.

Via Mike Stamford, he knew that one of the most highly respected professors he had trained under had a couple of years ago been very quietly given the option of public disgrace or discreet rehabilitation, and after completing an extensive treatment regime had been clean of any narcotic substance for the first time since she was a med student back in the 1970s – at which point she had promptly retired from medicine because she couldn't be persuaded from her view that she had been a far better physician whilst using cocaine than her current 'bland, neutered, pedestrian state of being'.

But he understood the power of that pull, that delusional sense of operating at a higher, _better _peak – in Bosnia he'd once spent two months straight spooning five sugars into every hot drink he had and yes, for a while he _had_ been seduced by the flattery of people's admiration for his 'inexhaustible' energy, stamina and alertness, basking in the glow – until he'd been pinned down for 27 straight hours in a wet, stinking mud foxhole half his size with bullets whizzing all around him, bullets he was in no fit state to even register never mind evade because he was shaking like a jelly in a wind tunnel from sugar withdrawal. It had been a miracle he'd escaped unscathed. Although maybe it had just been that he was shuddering and twitching so much he simply didn't stay still long enough for any aimed shot to be effective. Not even Seb Moran sniper extraordinaire could have hit him with all that jitterbugging going on.

For Sherlock, it was all about his brain – the body was a transport system, nothing more or more interesting – and what excised him intolerably was boredom: the trivial, the trite, the tedious, the inane and banal.

Whilst Sherlock had limited himself mostly to nicotine patches ever since the two of them had become flatmates, using cigarette packets merely for moral support, he wasn't fooled that was all the man had ever used, and maybe occasionally eschewed in favour of something with more 'oomph' - particularly not after that outburst from Sherlock – a year ago near enough to the day, by now, blimey! – when Greg Lestrade had yanked the Holmes' chain by pulling that drug bust stunt on 221B.

Of course Sherlock was far too clever to have any illegal substances at their flat, but his own expression of…disapproval?...surprised disappointment?...had clearly hit a nerve from the way Sherlock had turned on him and snarled '_Oh shut up!_' in his face when he hadn't even said a single word. Sherlock Holmes' drug use in whatever form it had taken or might in future take, would be a precise, methodical experiment of carefully noted sensation, of his craving for mental stimulation and distraction.

Unfortunately, just like a car was the transport system for the person, the body as transport for the brain needed probably more careful maintenance and repair than the driver. That morning, as Sherlock had stalked around the kitchen, ranting about his experiment results, his face too white, his cheek-bones too defined, his figure too lean, he had genuinely feared the man was about to stroke out, or at least have a nervous breakdown. He'd had to literally stand in Sherlock's path and Sherlock hadn't stopped him as he'd pulled up each pyjama sleeve in turn to reveal four patches on each of Sherlock's upper arms. He had stated, on the spot, that Sherlock had quit smoking and would quit nicotine supplements _now_.

That brain Sherlock loved so much wouldn't have it quite so easy if the body developed lung cancer from smoking, or other types of cancer from the nicotine patches, or he went into total overdose with nine or more patches and had a stroke, or aneurysm, or haemorrhage. Or else he developed Hypothyroidism, or Diabetes or high blood pressure/hypertension/cholesterol from his crap diet, Hepatitis B, C, HIV or sundry other infections should Sherlock happen to use a needle that _was _not clean, or even if he got something respectable but nasty like MRSA or C. Diff in hospital after getting shot/stabbed/injected/bludgeoned by the villain _du jour_ and his malnourished body wasn't able to put up enough of a fight. Keep the car in tip-top condition and it would take the brain anywhere it desired for years without a hitch…_John Watson, soldier, doctor and metaphysical mechanic…is that another profession I just invented for myself?_

"Why differentiate?"

"Hum?" almost wistfully he swallowed the last bite of superb sausage a moment after Sherlock finished his breakfast and asked the question.

"You said that the armchair looters like the late, unlamented General Shan needed 'professional survivors' able to tell a tomb from a temple. If you're an antiquities thief, isn't one archaeological site to shoot and loot the same as any other?"

Tea – hot, sweet, nectar of the gods, tea, with rich, creamy, Guernsey cow milk and sinfully wonderful amounts of _I-don't-give-a-damn _sugar. "Have you ever seen that Harrison Ford film, _Temple of Doom_?"

"Yes?"

"What was wrong with it?"

"Where should I start? Leaving aside that blonde actress who screamed so much all the way through you were actually _rooting_ for her to be eviscerated by the cartoon-painted baddies – there's alphabetically, chronologically – "

"All right...Okay let me put it this way…I know your methods so, what's my faith?"

"Faith?" Suddenly Sherlock fixed him with that unblinking, unwavering snake-stare as he enunciated the word as if uttering the name of a social disease.

"Yes, my faith…my religion –"

"I understand the word." Sherlock cut him off and then spoke flatly, "Roman Catholic. You're –"

"Right." It was his turn to do a verbal shut-down, he didn't need the expository monologue. "In view of that, think about Rome – St. Peter's Basilica, and the catacombs underneath it and the city. I know Puabi wasn't Egyptian, but think about the Valley of Kings and then Luxor. Now apply proper _Star Trek_ Vulcan logic to it and tell me what was wrong with the _Temple of Doom_, and come to think of it, _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ and _The Last Crusade_, and what – despite the comic book origins – _Lara Croft: Tomb Raider_ got right."

As he expected, he was dealing with a genius. "Form follows function," Sherlock obligingly quoted Spock of the pointy ears, "A tomb is designed to keep people _out_; a temple is designed to let them _in_."

He raised his mug in slight salute. "If you're an ex-army merc' working for relic thieves, you don't want a tomb, because tombs are hard – they're hidden, remote, inaccessible and when you get there booby-trapped up the yin-yang to keep the goodies in and the grubby unwashed out...ancient tombs are the equivalent of Manchester United footballers' 'gated communities' to keep the unwashed plebeians out. A temple is easy, because the whole _point _is footfall, like a modern day shopping centre, I dunno, Bluewater or Meadowhall or somewhere – a temple is visible, convenient, and accessible – the priests' income and the god's reputation depend on _happy_ visitors translating into _return customers_ and they'd get neither if they went around Temple of Dooming their worshippers."

"Tomb equals hassle and more effort, temple equals a pleasure trip and increased profit margin," Sherlock concluded sipping his tea. "As a matter of interest, where _were_ you actually on the night of the robbery?"

"Date." he shrugged, "Didn't end well."

Lie, with plausible excuse – it was the one area in life where you could hope to get away with deceiving the human lie detector. He had no idea if what Irene Adler claimed Jim Moriarty had labelled Sherlock as was true, Mycroft the Iceman (definitely) and Sherlock the Virgin…because it was none of his or anyone else's business bar Sherlock's and quite frankly, this country would be a much better place if people put a bit of self-discipline into being the master of their body, not a slave to every basic ephemeral impulse that flared in their gonads.

But he suspected that if Moriarty's goading taunt was _untrue_ or wrong, then Sherlock's past experi-_ence_ – of physical intimacy had not been enjoyable or pleasant or possibly even voluntary or consensual at all. Sherlock was to the 'tender emotional spectrum' what a shotgun was to candy floss…which was why there was no way no how he was going to get into any explanation or wherefores of the truth that in fact he had been scouting out the placement of a particular headstone in a London cemetery of a pleasant early evening.

© 2012, The Cat's Whiskers

All rights reserved

_Continued in Chapter 5…_

Martin Freeman, who plays John Watson, played the character of Arthur Dent in an adaptation of Douglas Adams (1952-2001) bestselling novel, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy._

The word 'frenemy' is a portmanteau of the words "friend" and "enemy" (like "cargument" is a portmanteau of "car" and "argument") and had appeared in written form by the early 1950s, according to Wikipedia (itself a portmanteau of "wiki" and "encyclopaedia".)

As a 'general rule' since all languages were 'spoken' before many developed a 'written' form of their speech, any word or phrase in existence has been in 'common or _frequent usage_ in general speech _for a minimum of one generation before _the first _known of _recorded example of it being written down.'

Most authorities use a general time-span of '35 years' to equate to the period of 'one generation' for uniformity and research reasons. Since Wikipedia states that the earliest (so far) known written example of the word _frenemy _is in 1953, this means the word existed in the English language in spoken form at least as early as 1918, and probably well before.

Similar origins apply for the portmanteau words _cargument_ and _bromance _("brother" and "romance" to denote a very close but platonic friendship, a 'brotherhood', originally termed 'buddy-buddy') which, although both coming to prominence in the 2010 'reimagined' TV series _Hawaii 5-0_, had become widely known 'spoken' terms from the late 1990s to the 2000s, as is the case with _chillax _(the slang usage of the word "chill" combined with "relax") which had been around for over 20 years before making it into general pop culture usage.

Given that the word _frenemy _existed in spoken form at the same time as World War I, it is interesting to note that originally the term was used to describe an _enemy pretending to be a friend_ (e.g., fifth columnist, enemy spies) and in this context was often applied to more than just the relationship between two individuals, such as political institutions and commercial organisations.

From the early 1950s onwards, the word's meaning has shifted and is now used more to describe the relationship between two individuals rather than organisations and to describe someone who genuinely _is_ a friend – or amicable acquaintance – but also a rival in some way rather than an actual enemy masquerading as non-hostile or as a friend. Usually, but not always, both the friendship/amiable acquaintanceship and the rivalry arise from both individuals working in the same profession or occupation, or having achieved/making progress in the same 'field' or discipline, such as music, science, authorship, sport, acting or whatever it might be.

For examples, two journalist correspondents for different newspapers or two stock market traders for different banks or two chefs for different restaurants might describe themselves or be described by others as 'frenemies' because whilst they have a friendship or a cordial acquaintanceship in the pursuit of their common career, they also have a rivalry in seeking to achieve qualifications, acclaim, awards, salary and so forth before the other.

For examples: the characters of Raymond Doyle (Martin Shaw) and Bodie (Lewis Collins) in the British TV series _The Professionals _(police);the characters of _Tango and Cash_ in the eponymous movie played by Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell (police officers); the eponymous characters of _Franklin and Bash _in the TV series starring Breckin Meyer and Mark-Paul Gosselaar (lawyers); the characters of Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) and Jessica Pearson (Gina Torres) in the TV show _Suits _(lawyers)and the characters of Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) and Josephina Lupo (Erica Cerra) in _A Town Called Eureka _(sheriffs)are all examples of a 'frenemy' relationship of varying degrees.

Sometimes a _frenemy _relationship overlaps with, has elements of, or combines to become both a _frenemy _and a _bromance_ – such as Bodie and Doyle, Franklin and Bash. However, the _bromance _between the characters of Danny Williams (Scott Caan) and Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) in _Hawaii 5-0_ and that between G. Callen (Chris O'Donnell) and Sam Hanna (LL Cool J) in _NCIS: Los Angeles _would not also qualify as _frenemy _or _frenemies _because the rivalry component does not apply – Danny is a police detective, Steve is a US Navy Naval Intelligence then SEAL (Special Forces) operative and both have achieved in their spheres of adult life independently, as have Callen (spy) and Sam (SEAL), so the _frenemy _component does not apply. Similarly the relationship between Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and Anthony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherley) in _NCIS _is neither _bromance _nor _frenemy, _but _mentor _and _protégé_. However, the relationship between Anthony DiNozzo and Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) combines elements of all three – _bromance, frenemy_ and _mentor _(DiNozzo)/_protégé _(McGee).

Wikipedia quotes a _Businessweek _article as follows that having or being a 'frenemy' is much more common in the modern world due to '_the abundance of close, intertwined relationships that bridge people's professional and personal lives_..._while _[people socialised with colleagues in the past] _the sheer amount of time _[that an individual spends at work] _now has left a lot of people with less time _[energy, capability and] _inclination to develop friendships outside _[their workplace or careers].'

NB – _portmanteau_, plural _portmanteaux_, is a combination of two (or more) morphemes or words _and their definitions_ into one new composite word, for examples, _smog _(smoke and fog) and _cargument_ (car and argument). You can have an argument with someone anywhere but you can only have a _cargument_ with someone inside a motorised vehicle of some kind. Likewise a _bromance_ is a very close, intense friendship between two men that is entirely platonic – if the two men become sexually involved with each other, it is no longer a _bromance_, by definition platonic, but a straightforward _romance_.

Although there can be minor overlap, a portmanteau is not the same as a compound or contraction. In the 19th Century, a 'portmanteau' was a suitcase that opened out into two equal sections (these can still be bought from luggage retailers), and derives from the French _porter_ (to carry) and _manteau_ (cloak, from _mantle_, outerwear). British writer Lewis Carroll used 'portmanteau' to describe the coinage of his unusual words in _Alice Through the Looking-Glass _[Mirror] in 1971. After _Humpty Dumpty _has told Alice that 'slithy' means 'lithe and slimy' and 'mimsy' is 'flimsy and miserable' he then tells Alice, '_You see it's like a portmanteau, there are two meanings packed up into one word_.'

Cloggy Beans: the vast majority of 'baked bean brands' (e.g., Heinz, Branston, etc.) are very nice apart from one universal flaw, the 'tomato sauce' is actually thin and more like ruddy water (ruddy in the colour sense not the epithet sense) than proper sauce. In order to fix this problem, get a small saucepan, empty your baked beans into it and then put in a big dollop of _proper _fat – by which I mean, if possible, real dripping (beef, pork or lamb, doesn't matter) or a bit of goose fat or lard or butter. Do NOT use any low-fat, low-salt so-called 'healthier' (excuse me whilst I laugh) option. Keep the beans on the lowest possible heat, stirring occasionally and you will see the 'red water' thicken and reduce to a satisfying consistency of deliciousness. When the sauce has reduced to the consistency of your preference, stir a couple of times and serve immediately.

Milk from any lactating mammal that is herbivorous (eats only vegetables) or omnivorous (eats vegetables and meat) – cows, sheep, goats, camels, horses, dogs, badgers, bears, pigs - and yes, human breast milk – is highly nutritious and contains a great many very useful enzymes that help particularly with skin diseases such as eczema and psoriasis. (Note, purely carnivorous mammal milk such as that produced by cats is not, which is why there is no difference in eating dogs and badgers than sheep and pigs but cats should not be eaten). The animal should be milked and the milk boiled to heat it through and then it can be drunk or chilled and served later.

In many European countries you will see vending machines that sell raw milk chilled like our vending machines sell soft drinks and such like. However, in the 1950s following World War II, vested interests in Britain were seeing their profitability plummet. The issue with raw milk was that it had to be done properly, with a high quality of animal care and welfare, otherwise there was a risk of brucellosis (also called Bang's Disease and Maltese Fever), which is a febrile disease and abortificent with a minority of death rates amongst vulnerable people.

Animals kept in poor conditions and distressed were susceptible to contracting brucellosis and thus infecting their milk with it. This, however, reduced profit margins even further. Pasteurisation of milk was faster, cheaper, easier, 'kept' longer, could be transported over greater distance and allowed for high-profit margin 'factory farming' with lots of animals maintained in relatively small areas by being kept penned inside. In the 'Vet' series of _James Herriot_ (real name Alfred Wight), the eccentric co-lead character is 'Siegfried Farnon', who was really a vet named Donald V. Sinclair (1911-1995). Although never mentioned in the series, Sinclair's first marriage was ended by the death of his wife, Evelyn B. Sinclair, née Holborow_, _in March 1936 at the age of 30 due to brucellosis. Thus, an artificial brucellosis scare was 'media manufactured' and the sale of raw milk except by licence from a few small-scale organic farms is now severely restricted in Britain.

The topography of the primary Channel Islands – Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark, is very steep hillsides that rise up almost in terraces like the South American pre-Conquistador farming. Traditionally the Channel Island farmers covered the potatoes they grew in these terraces with seaweed brought straight from the beach, called _'wrack'_. Stupendously nutritious, as the seaweed dried it replenished nutrients in the soil rather than leaching them away as does many manure and fertilisers and gave the potatoes a fantastic flavour. In the centre of the islands where fields are large and flat, it is faster, easier and far more profitable to cover potatoes in standard manure then ship these to mainland Britain to sell at premium prices as 'Jersey Royals' whilst the _real_ Channel Island potato crop is kept on the island in question. The smaller farmers who hill-farm continue to use wrack, and it is typical for them to start selling their potato crop at 6.00am and be sold out by 6.15am. So delicious are wrack-potatoes that they can be eaten raw and fresh from the field.

All avian species (birds) are scavengers and will peck at and ingest any rubbish around. In order to prevent nasty germs etc., from killing them, the bird's immune defences 'insert' the germ into an egg that is then laid and is sterile, literally expelling the problem. However, if the egg is then eaten (particularly raw or soft-cooked) by another creature, the germ or parasite can attack the eater. Whilst the _meat_ of free range birds is tastier and superior to that of caged or barn-raised birds, the _eggs_ of such birds are dangerous because the free-foraging means the birds can ingest any muck and it is impossible to tell by looking at an egg if it is infested or not; the _eggs_ of barn/cage birds are far safer because you know within reason that the birds have been fed on grain, etc., which carries no risk of parasite or germ.

The Golden Triangle – salt, fat and sugar - are the three big ingredients in _all_ food processing, especially industrial-scale commercial processing (e.g., supermarkets, chain restaurants and pub food which is frozen and reheated). If _one_ ingredient is reduced or removed for whatever reason, the other two have to be increased because otherwise the food is inedible by virtue of tasting like 'wet cardboard'. Due to this, anything that is 'low fat' will have high levels of sugar and salt (no matter whether a sweet or savoury food) and anything that is 'low sugar' or 'sugar free' will have increased fat and salt, and anything 'low salt' will have compensating sugar and fat. Eating naturally occurring fats and oils which are quickly and easily broken down by the body and turned into nutrients, like butter, cheese, yoghurt, fruit, meat, vegetables, are much healthier than low-substance alternatives such as margarine, processed fruit juice drinks, 'low-salt' products and artificial sweeteners. Margarine, for example, cannot be easily digested by the body and often passes through and is excreted as a solid, dense lump. Unless a child has a genuine illness, e.g., Coeliac Disease, extreme care should be taken not to put children on fad or limit diets like vegetarian, gluten-free, no/fat-reduced dairy, macrobiotic or whatever the Sainted Gwyneth Paltrow dreams up next. – preadolescent children and (particularly men) humans over the age of 35 need certain enzymes and nutrients that excluding these foods will remove from their diet. Human beings (should) begin puberty between age 12-16, and adolescence actually lasts from about age 12-26, and humans do not reach full physiological adulthood – physical, mental, emotional – until the age of about 26-32 for women and 28-35 for men. It is therefore unwise to deprive a human being's developing body of any nutrient until after age 35, and even then only for a diagnosed medical reason. Lack of such nutrients can cause or contribute to everything from Parkinson's Disease, Schizophrenia, Dementia, Diabetes, Heart Disease and a whole slew of unpleasantness, which is not fully recognised because often the nastiness doesn't kick in until 20, 30 or 40 years after the initial damage was done – it's like the guy who smokes like a chimney from 20-40 then becomes a health freak…so he doesn't develop smoking-related lung cancer until the age of 75.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Disclaimer and etc.:**__ See Chapter 1_

**Holmesian Logic**

**Part I**

**Chapter 5**

"_Of course_ you need us, we're leaving now. _Joh_-hn!" Sherlock moderated his bellow to a bark as he finished the mobile phone call and saw John standing on the bottom step down from the second-floor.

_No breakfast then_. He obediently followed as Sherlock shot down the stairs and out the front door with a yelled "_''bye Mrs Hudson!'_"– at least that hitherto unheard of minor courtesy showed that Sherlock seemed to be grasping some of the social niceties these days - echoing as the door slammed shut behind the two of them and Sherlock opened the rear door of the taxi that pulled up.

Thanks mainly to his own blog and its hyperlink to Sherlock's Consulting Detective website, taxi cabs had taken to – okay, conveniently - circling Baker Street like great whites around a chum tank, aware it was worth it because literally at any moment the ''net phenomenon' Consulting Detective could come bursting out of 221B like a greyhound out of the traps at full speed, and they could claim, 'I'm _Sherlock Holmes_' cabman,' etc.

There were also a variety of rubber-neckers, gawkers, freelance photographers, hacks and stalkerazzi/paparazzi about that enterprising cabbies could transport to and from Baker Street, along with a smattering of adolescent girls – and older females who should have had more sense – wanting to catch a glimpse of _that _profile, and no, it wasn't that of the short, snub-nosed medico room-mate.

That was largely due to the paparazzi snaps outside that theatre at the end of The Navel Treatment case when Sherlock had lumbered them both with those daft hats – it had made him look like he was trying ape Guy Ritchie, like an inverted snob diehard of the flat cap 'n' whippets brigade. Sherlock of course, was different – his height, that swirling high-collared great coat, that patrician facial bone-structure and those high, delineated cheekbones…oh no, _he_ hadn't looked like a prize prune, just the opposite - that deerstalker and coat-collar covered face had made _him_ look male supermodel exotic and dramatic, all light and shadows and alluring mystery.

Anticipation tightened his empty stomach – if Lestrade had phoned rather than texted Sherlock, it could be something big, especially as Sherlock was obnoxious about his preference for 'written' rather than 'verbal' communication – texting, tweeting, email, SMS and Instant Messaging – not speech, phone calls or web-cam. He had no idea how much was genuine preference and how much was a deliberate method to antagonise Mycroft, who would always telephone, use video-conferencing, iPhone Face Time™ or contrive sinister one-on-one personal meetings – '_look at the CCTV cameras outside the telephone box, Dr Watson'_ – in an exact opposite manner to Sherlock. _Honestly, the pair of them…_

But at least he'd got some food inside the man yesterday…supper had finished off the loaf of bread and the beef dripping – he'd texted Craig Reddish his usual reorder by the time he'd finished the breakfast washing up as Sherlock was involved with 'important' experimenting which caused him to lose all ability to hold a tea towel.

He'd sliced the final few cold Jersey Royal potatoes on top of Craig's diced mutton, onion, peas and carrot mix and made a passable cross between a Lancashire hotpot and a shepherd's pie; by careful conversational distraction, he had ensured that Sherlock ate the lion's share of it. Stuffed full of nutritious food for the first time in days, Sherlock hadn't done much more than twitch and raise his eyebrows when the ten o'clock news came on and the headline was blurry footage of Greg Lestrade and the information that _'DI Lestrade refused to comment on the arrest of the National Antiquities Museum's Domestic Services Manager for the sensational theft of the Puabi Amulet…' _

"…given up on Jane, then."

"Jane?" He repeated the name to cover his moment of wool-gathering as Sherlock spoke without turning his head away from his typical approach to taxi journeys – as much as possible, Sherlock took the right-side back seat and spent the journey staring out at the passing blur that was London at speed – it probably focussed his logic neurons and deducing synapses or something.

"The teacher…stomped off in a strop over nothing at…Christmas? Yes, it would have been, I remember the ghastly tinsel."

_No, you insulted her the moment she walked in, humiliated poor Molly – again – and generally acted as if I were your shadow, guaranteed to follow you everywhere regardless of any other consideration than your own convenience. Unfortunately, you're right about that, which is probably why she was so pissed off._

"Jeannette," he corrected …without regret – he'd made overtures but practically from their second date, Jeanette had been determined to 'win' against Sherlock, and she had been doomed to fail. She was one of those women who saw her potential husband's friends and even family as rivals to one-up and banish from his life, which was probably why she was still single in her late-thirties despite being financially secure, possessed of a physically attractive body and a pretty face and not least being sensually Anglo-French with the accent to match _mon amour_.

He had made his decision the moment he'd pulled the trigger to kill Jeff Hope – even in his own head, he refused to use any euphemisms for his choices and actions there from, and he certainly had not an iota of guilt about it. Dad had told him, quietly, when he was agonising about his equally strong conflicting desires to follow the most positive of the traditions of his father's family, the 'twins' of medicine and the military in the form of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers, seeking to reconcile 'cure and kill'…

'_Lad, murder is an evil act for evil reasons – it is premeditated, pre-conceived, pre-planned, pre-arranged, coldly and callously decided upon to bring benefit to the murderer. A killer takes another human life only if absolutely necessary and has no other viable alternatives. The man who slays his grandparents for his inheritance is a murderer; the woman who uses all her savings to have her persistent, abusive stalker who ignores court orders assassinated is a killer. _Dad had been clear that he could join the Army via military medical college because Dr Watson Senior believed a person could be a killer and never commit a murder in their life…

And that had been his decision – poor, duped Jeff Hope had been a murderer – as Sherlock had declared to himself and Greg Lestrade the following 'debrief' day at New Scotland Yard, whatever desire to financially secure his estranged children's future had prompted Hope to accept Jim Moriarty's 'sponsorship', it had rapidly been smothered by base greed and egomania, a gloating 'personal glee' that had extinguished any nobility the man had. Jeff Hope had always been a murderer, no matter his initial motives, whereas Sherlock would only ever be a killer – at least as long as _he _was around to run interference…

_Sherlock won, because I consciously and deliberately decided that he always will…_long before Jeannette, even before Sarah Sawyer...who was suspiciously shaping up to go down in his personal history as The One Who Proved To Be The One That Got Away. Sarah had been very perceptive and very smart, and he had no doubt that she had figured out what Jeannette hadn't seen – or rather what Jeanette had refused to see – after barely an hour in Sherlock's orbit.

Sarah, unlike Jeannette had been mature enough to see it from _John Watson's _perspective – he knew Sarah was grown up enough to deal with life in an adult manner without needing him, if necessary. Sherlock was an idiot savant – elements of brilliance wrapped up in a package that could never be safely left unattended. Short version: John, by nature, by nurture, by career choice, by deliberate decision, would never abandon the one who couldn't deal with the real world without _someone_ to be his filter, interpreter, guide, bodyguard and sounding board.

Yet again, he missed the first few words and mentally gave himself a figurative clip around the ear – you _did not_ daydream in the presence of Sherlock Holmes, sidekick or not.

"…florist's that your bouquet will be ready first thing Friday. It's a mixed bouquet, so you're unsure of the woman's tastes, so new interest, and small, so she's old enough to be sensible about the relationship and not some giddy girl wanting silly sentimental profusions of red roses. It won't be ready till Friday because your floral choices were atypical not trite banalities, and commensurately expensive, so she's a professional career woman equivalent to yourself – lawyer, doctor or scientist. You're collecting them Friday morning, so it's a lunch date, and a proper, formal courting lunch date not café coffee, from the way you've dry-cleaned and pressed your very best dark blue suit with the regimental Gosling Green colour inside lining that you only ever wear with your regimental St. George tie-pin and Rose & Crown cufflinks, which you've polished up as well. But, you haven't booked any restaurant appropriate to her financial income bracket within a _twenty mile_ radius of Baker Street, or Bart's, so the woman is…" Sherlock finished with a hint of _something_, "…married."

"Sherlock…" He tilted his mobile phone so Sherlock could see it was on his Speed Dial function – the first of the four numbers listed under that was simply '1: M.'

Whatever retort might have been forthcoming was lost as the taxi pulled up at the famous revolving sign: _New Scotland Yard_ and Sherlock bounced out and away into the building, leaving the gopher to pay.

"You want me to wait, guvnor?" asked the cabbie in an extremely bad attempt at nonchalance, his eyes gleaming with curiosity and avarice as he watched _the_ Sherlock Holmes stride purposefully from _his cab _into _New Scotland Yard, not a word of a lie, as I'm sitting here…_

"I'm afraid I've no idea how long we'll be." He made the veto with a decent tip politely; it was thus made clear that if the cabbie happened to be around when they came out, all well and good, but no way was _he_ paying for the bloke to sit there and run the meter up.

The cab moved slowly away, and he doubted it would go far as he shoved away his wallet and made sure he set his phone back to the normal screen before he put it in his pocket – he did _not_ want to dial Mycroft. But he was glad he'd followed through on setting up his speed dial buttons – 1: M, for Mycroft, 2: S for…the most annoying man in the world, 3: H for Home and Mrs Hudson, 4: L for Greg Lestrade.

Originally Sherlock had gotten into the semi-regular habit of stalking him, tracking him about town like a scientist monitoring a tagged seabird or something. Several polite remonstrations about Sherlock needing to respect his privacy had come to nothing, and there had been more than one occasion when the situation had been embarrassing, such as...Emma-Leigh – he'd had high hopes for her, before…– who on their first and only date had managed to surreptitiously text the police and have them surrounded by squad cars and uniformed officers who had frogmarched an unprepared Sherlock into the streetlights.

It turned out Emma-Leigh had had painful personal experience of a threatening stalker and tended to be hyper-alert and _very_ proactive – that was to say, as a perfectly understandable consequence definitely suffering from a degree of social paranoia – about her fears someone was following her/them.

He'd intervened quickly as some of the uniforms – he recognised two friends of Sergeant Sally Donovan - were a bit too free with the manhandling and the tight grip and he could see Sherlock's aura, or mood, or body language or whatever label the psychobabblers stuck on it these days, shifting from calm to dangerous.

He would voluntarily eat some of Sherlock's 'experiments' if the man _wasn't_ lethally proficient in at least two of the more homicidal martial arts – _Krav Maga_, for instance, as developed by Israeli Special Forces, or ancient _Kung Fu_. The last thing he needed was to have Sherlock – autistic sociopaths with Asperger's Syndrome and 'impulse control' were two mutually exclusive concepts – suddenly decide to _demonstrate _his proficiency on the hapless Met coppers in front of the already paranoid and edging-towards-histrionic-public-temper-tantrum Emma-Leigh.

His own small stature and lack of height was one of those various unfortunate traditions in the Watson family; in World War II Granddad Watson had met up with a member of the Gracie family, legends in the combat technique of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which was based on the premise that shorter/smaller/weaker/skinnier victim could protect against taller/bigger/stronger/bulkier attacker by literally going to the ground, which eliminated the height, weight, power and reach advantage of a larger attacker against a smaller victim – on the ground, with those advantages effectively nullified making both 'equal' a BJJ knowledgeable _intended _victim could use the mechanical strength of applying ground-fighting chokeholds and joint-wrenches to counter the attacker's physical strength before scrabbling up and legging it whilst _intended_ attacker rolled around squealing from a dislocated shoulder/elbow/knee or even thumb.

The Gracie guy had taught Granddad a whole load of useful moves that Granddad had taught his own kids, including Dad, who in turn had taught the short-arse contingent of their own offspring…hadn't Harry hated it when she'd taken after mum's _muscular beanpole_ side of the family and dad had rather astutely realised that teaching _her_ BJJ was like the farmer training the fox to get into the hen-house.

In short, although Sherlock had never discussed it with him or even mentioned it, he had enough experience of observing the body posture and subconscious 'stance' of others to know when someone had proficiency in _some_ sort of martial art, or these days usually a 'mixed martial art' technique, and Sherlock had that body posture and the lack of sunny temperament to go with it, which meant he had known he had to defuse the cartoon ACME bomb _pronto_.

Emma-Leigh had wanted – had expected – him to support her demand for arrest and detention, but it had been his decision, since Sherlock had openly admitted he wasn't stalking her but John, with the blunt declaration, _'Oh do shut up you annoying creature, I was tracking __**him**__ not you – you're a self-centred fornicatrix cuckolding your clueless partner in the hope of a better financial prospect. I could tell you your life history and future from the first five seconds. Boring...'_

She had flounced off with a fury that at least partly stemmed from her embarrassment at being publicly exposed as a liar and a cheat when he had flatly refused to press charges and instead told the police they may as well release Sherlock because as they were room-mates, stalking didn't really apply. Sherlock had utterly ignored his said room-mate's ire at being followed, instead contemplating the precision or lack thereof of nomenclature – an adulterer male, feminine, adulteress, only applied when the individual was legally married to the betrayed partner; since religiously, all non-marital sex was classed as _fornication_ - sexual wrongdoing outside marriage - a male cheat should be a _fornicator_ and the feminine, _fornicatress_…or _fornicatrix_.

"Straight through, up the stairs," the desk operator instructed without even looking up from her screen as he came in, just pressing the door release; they were used to Sherlock's shadow, his hanger-on, now.

"Thanks," he said it anyway and went through the security door – all the staircases in his life; he should have the cardiovascular constitution of oxen.

But there had also been more than one occasion when the situation had been…_painful._ First but not least or last, Sherlock following that day when he himself thought _Mycroft _was the one waiting for him at abandoned Battersea…instead it had been a very much alive Irene Adler.

Again sometimes he liked to think that her reaction of being disconcerted by _his _fury at her deception had been genuine, and made her realise the imprudence of ignoring the sidekick.

Jim Moriarty had done that at the swimming pool, and he had obviously had no idea that because of that, the only person who would have died if Sherlock had shot and detonated the bomb vest would have been _him_, courtesy of one John Watson's mad military skills, mate. Not that either Sherlock or Mycroft seemed to have realised that, either, though of course that was long gone now.

Now, he had no time for all that mawkish sentimentalism and pseudo-tears that seemed to pervade this country these days…forget 'emotional incontinence', everybody seemed to have emotional _diarrhoea _these days– just as messy and just as stinky and just as grotesque…Nobody seemed to know what dignity in grief meant anymore…but he was glad that he hadn't known Sherlock was there listening as he verbally ripped Ms Adler a new orifice for what she'd done to Sherlock – his anger at what she'd put Sherlock through had been raw, and genuine, and whilst it doubtless meant nothing to Irene the Egomaniac or Sherlock the Sociopath or Mycroft the Maniacal, it damn well meant something _to him_ that Sherlock had heard with his own ears that John _did _care, did care about him and about what mattered to him, and was not going to stand there and let the sick and selfish play games with Sherlock's life and feelings – what emotions the man was capable of, at any rate. For him that was enough.

Although that didn't stop him getting exasperated and wound-up by it all. In the end, they'd had a bit of a set to about the sporadic stalking, which he had won by inspiration born of ire…

_He whipped out his mobile phone and began to jab keys, "Right! Fine!"_

"_What are you doing?" snapped Sherlock._

"_I'm calling Mycroft to get him to put a couple of his trainee Double-Oh-Seven killers on __**permanent**__ surveillance of me. That will free you up from stalking me and let you get back to your decapitated heads and amputated limbs mouldering in the fridge, and you'll get to chat to Mycroft two, oh even three, times a day when he rings you with updates on my coffee and café routine – it'll do you both the power of good –"_

_The mobile phone had been whipped out of his hand just before he could hit the final digit that would send the call through to Mycroft and Sherlock had stalked not him but into the kitchen and glued his eyes to his microscope without another word…_

But it had worked – oh there were still occasions when he imagined, and was fairly sure after some instances, that Sherlock had been stalking him that time, using his movements about town as a bit of self-exercise and practising of the Holmesian tracking techniques and surveillance skills. That first night in Brixton, when Greg Lestrade had called Sherlock to see Jennifer Wilson's body – only much later had he himself come to understood her brilliance, her genius – when he'd walked out to find Sherlock gone and sarcastic Sally Donovan waiting outside, something had made him glance up and he was _sure_ he'd glimpsed Sherlock, standing amongst the old tall chimney pots of the terraced houses a street over…

It did make sense – London was a city in a constant state of expansion and architectural flux – the useful alley there today could be demolished and turned into a car park tomorrow; roads were re-signed one way, blocked in, new buildings and change of uses were daily occurrences. If Sherlock was going to roam the city at will via the rooftops like some real life version of a _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ Nosferatu, he had to keep updated with its layout.

However, he himself also had a right to his privacy, to a bit of a no-Holmes-family-members-allowed-beyond-this-point space and time…not least to protect what little romance he was able to manage these days…above all, the last thing he needed was for Sherlock to have witnessed his little _tête-à-tête _with Seb, complete with gun, yesterday morning outside Mrs Rabani's, _or_ to follow him on Friday for what Sherlock presumed to be a clandestine meeting with a married woman…which was the case, except that it wasn't…There were certain parts of his life that it would be better and safer for Sherlock to remain unaware of, even if most of the applicable ones weren't already literally classified in the whole 'I can neither confirm nor deny' category.

These offices of Scotland Yard didn't seem to change, which he found rather reassuring, truth be told – there were no real constants in life, wasn't that for sure. Sherlock was already in full flow and didn't acknowledge his arrival in anyway, but then that wasn't really a surprise – and had been another tick in the 'Pro' column for weaning him of his dependency on nicotine patches. Sherlock tended to talk to him, or rather at him, in a 'stream of consciousness way' and if really focussed on a case, or an experiment, or both, often continued to do so without realising that John had taken bathroom breaks, spent the evening downstairs watching telly with Mrs Hudson, gone to bed/shopping/out/on a date or was otherwise a) not paying any attention or simply b) not actually there at all.

There had been that memorable day Sherlock had been in full mania about some post-mortem saliva secretions experiment that was cluttering up the kitchen table (again) and had been talking/ranting/muttering/barking questions at him in spasmodic outbursts – that afternoon he had left Sherlock soliloquising in the living room and taken a taxi to meet Mike Stamford for the three o'clock Heathrow to Dublin flight, for their overnight stay for celebrating old Armstrong's Stag do – his third or fifth, depending on whether you counted the two for both engagements he'd had at Bart's, both of which had been scratched by the women in question before the Big Day.

Rumour still persisted that Armstrong had only graduated MBBS because Fiancée No.1's dad had offered to subsidise his third year costs in full if he broke it off. He'd known, and fancied, Fiancée No.2, himself, an otherwise sensible girl who had gone home and announced she'd finished the relationship, at which point her dad, a textbook dour, undemonstrative Yorkshire Dalesman, had risen from his kitchen hearthside armchair with moist eyes, given her his first ever tight hug and announced he knew '_mah lass were too bright not t'see rait thru tha' tosser.'_ As she had admitted later, she simply couldn't bring herself to explain that her actions had been a ploy designed to provoke Armstrong into an apologetic reconciliation, and looking at him with the level-headedness her dad's reaction had triggered had certainly 'taken the shine off' to the extent she'd taken the ring off.

If Armstrong's Dublin antics at his third – or fifth – stag do were anything to go by, his latest marriage wouldn't be the last, either – his first two wives had apparently realised they were already a single mother to a very large baby before they actually got pregnant and divorced the man accordingly when they realised Armstrong had grown _older _but not _up _past the age of about fifteen, and therefore wanted not one woman but two – a visually pleasant, non-nagging version of his adoring mummy catering to Darling Boy's every whim, and an on-tap in-house free nymphomaniac prostitute who looked like a Playboy bunny and had the libido of a real rabbit.

Of course, in post 9/11 and post 7/7 air travel, the fact that he had a goodly portion of an IED micro-fragmented throughout the right side of his body tended to excite airport metal detectors and require explaining to Customs & Immigration staff why he set off all the bells and whistles and why an X-Ray of his physical form showed up like a dot-to-dot drawing…although, just like the old wives' tales claimed, he _was_ finding his aches and pains a far more accurate weather-predictor than the Met Office.

Consequently he'd been a bit red-eyed and 'tired' himself when he'd landed back at Heathrow at 11 o'clock the following morning, dumping his overnight bag in his room and coming back down to the first floor to make a much needed pot of tea only to find Sherlock carrying on _exactly_ as when he had left the afternoon before and _still _talking at-stroke-to him without showing any indication of realising that he'd been talking to himself for about twenty hours and that John had left the _country_ and returned in that time.

As he entered the inner sanctum of the Met, the inimitable 'Al' Jones wasn't present, probably for the best as Sherlock encroached on his empty desk while 'perched' metaphorically on Donovan's shoulder – she in turn shot a '_if looks could cause spontaneous combustion_' glare towards her boss –

"Hey, John." Greg Lestrade handed over a large mug of tea; whilst it wasn't quite fresh Guernsey milk standard, it was a good brew.

"Something big?" He nodded at Sherlock who ignored them – ignored everything – as he delved into Greg's case.

"I'm not sure, could be something, could be nothing, but when it landed I had a look and thought of you. One good turn deserves another."

"Hum?"

"The NAM's caretaker former Captain Marvin came as meek as a lamb and admitted everything straight off…although you're right about it'll go down – he'll spend less time in the clink than he will in the dock and he'll be retired in Hawaii under a pseudonym in a couple of years…" Although obviously having been filled in by Mycroft – or some flunkie of Mycroft's – on J.H. Watson's grand theory of the current state of the British penal system, Greg shrugged without resentment and with a boatload of pragmatism. "Whatever…thanks to you, it saved me _hours. _I didn't just _make_ my daughter's music recital, I was there shaved and in a fresh suit schmoozing and grazing on the canapés _half an hour_ before hand and making chit-chat with a load of people whom I've no doubt previously thought I was a fictional creation. My wife," Greg corrected himself, "- ex-wife wanted to record it for posterity."

"Ah. I haven't got kids but when I was...deployed," yes, that seemed the safest phraseology "…it was always hardest for the lads with kiddies – birthdays, Nativity plays, school football team finals, that sort of thing."

Greg nodded understanding, and somehow they were in a quiet corner as the room hummed around them, "My youngest daughter was thrilled I was there. It means the world to her…she attends a school for musically gifted -"

"Oh that's gr-"

"- autistic kids."

_I'm sorry_. The platitude was extinguished instantly. He'd never given such things so much as a careless thought, until after he'd been discharged from Selly Oak with his crocked shoulder and his gimpy leg and come back to town.

The advantage of being able to explain his injuries in one encapsulating word: _Afghanistan_, had been far outweighed by the disadvantage of it killing any conversation and atmosphere stone dead for thirty feet in every direction and it had taken all of an hour before he'd wanted to scream at every meaningless, auto-reflex uttered stilted 'social apology'. He had no doubt disabled people and their families were sick to the back teeth of hearing such variations on the theme a dozen times every day of their lives. Since associating with Sherlock – whose biggest plus point, at least during that frenetic first 24-hours, was his total obliviousness to and lack of awkwardness around the 'walking wounded soldier' - he had noticed within himself a decreasing tolerance for trite parroted banalities.

"Where on the autistic spectrum…?"

"High functionality; high IQ; only mild-spectrum presentation of Autism and Asperger's Syndrome - luckily."

"I've never been in general practice, when it comes to paediatric medicine I'm afraid I don't know much…" _hollow-eyed child prostitutes of both sexes, dead-eyed toddlers aware both of how there really were monsters in the world and their own unlikely chance of surviving to grow up, silently apathetic starved and bomb-wounded casualties who had learned that nobody came when you cried and those that did would only hurt you more, and those silent, too still little figures, like puppets with the strings cut, who would never move again…_

"Who does?" Lestrade gave another of his typical slight shrugs. "Every day is a learning curve that makes you wonder what the 'experts' were on and how high a dose when they wrote it – I'm sure you know what it was like to feel like _that_ back when you were up to your neck in muck and bullets whilst reading the 'experts' view of UK foreign policy on Twits-R-'ere or Face-Off."

"Oh goodness me, yes..." Wasn't that a bull's-eye comment; no indeed, there was nothing unintelligent about Greg Lestrade; a very astute and subtle man, in fact. "I remember one Lieutenant getting a fortnight on Jankers after greeting some MoD freeloader touring the base for his latest drivelling 'op-ed' piece with the question, '_Welcome to Earth; what's it like on Fuller's?_'"

"Ah…a certain Lieutenant J. H. Watson by any chance?"

"You may think that, I couldn't possibly comment."

The moment of levity faded as they both looked across at where Sherlock was pushing Sally Donovan – metaphorically – towards either a stroke or a murder attempt. He'd have to divert and distract in a minute – stroke: he'd have to _treat _her; murder: he'd have to _stop _her…

Greg said quietly, "My wife is a Special Needs teacher…a child protection case was how we met, so she was alert to spot the signs of 'developmental delay' as the current euphemism for handicapped kids has it. If she hadn't…"

"There were no…indications?" He ventured, making a determined effort not to hide behind clinical language.

"No. I mean, she was a surprise but Romie –"

"Rohmy?"

"Uh…Rose-Marie – her little brother was born with a cleft palate-hare lip and could only say Romie – or actually Womie, apparently – and it stuck. That's how she decided she was going to be a Special Needs Teacher at seven, after Dunc – her brother, Duncan – had had corrective surgery and needed to exercise his muscles to talk properly."

"Very focussed." He made a mental note to be very, very polite to the clearly formidable, if admirable-sounding, Romie ex-Mrs Lestrade, should they ever cross paths.

"Yeah…Like an Exocet missile, half the time." But it was said with affection not tension. "We went in for the first one and ended up with the twins of terror. You haven't got kids -"

"I thought I hadn't," he quipped to lighten the timbre and again they both glanced towards Sherlock and exchanged grins before he apologised, "Sorry, you were saying…"

"Well, anyone who says girls are easier than boys should be responded to with hysterical and scornful laughter, especially when you've got two Identikit Terror Tots. We tried for a boy the second time around and got Gregor – my name's Gregory and Romie's maiden name is McGregor, and Gregor was only a year old when we had Guy, my dad's name – who was supposed to be the last and surprise baby of the family…"

_Until you had another, defective surprise_…

"…Susan, from Gregory's Girl."

Fortunately Lestrade took his blank look for confusion about the name, not momentary inattention, "Like the film, _Gregory's Girl_, his girl is Susan?"

"Yes, of course."

"When she was expecting Suzy, Romie swore that whenever the baby heard my voice it started kicking, so _Gregory's Girl_. It was her repetitive banging on things that led to her autism being diagnosed, because even though she was barely two her rhythm and tonal ear were outstanding, even as her social skills were below average." Lestrade shook his head slightly at the memory. "It was bizarre, really – you sit there and have some doctor tell you - in the same sentence - that your daughter is a musical prodigy, a modern-day Mozart and she also suffers from Asperger's Syndrome and autism."

"I can imagine it's a bit hard to get your head around that."

"Try impossible, and explaining it to anyone else that your kid is simultaneously brilliant _and_…defective. You've got one list of special schools for gifted kids and one list of special schools for disabled kids and then you have to explain to everyone you need schools that combine both – and our families and friends had to get their heads around the whole prodigy-handicapped paradox." Again Greg shook his head at the memory. "Romie told me not to, that so much 'expert' theory was just that 'theory' and about as valuable as budget bog roll. But, still, for a while I spent entire nights reading up everything on the double whammy of Autism and Asperger's and it was just a merry go around of one bunch of self-appointed experts arguing with another bunch of self-appointed experts. I don't know how I functioned for about six months after the diagnosis without sleep."

"After I graduated from Bart's and was on my first ever deployment in…a hot zone…I was awake 24-7 for about six months myself, having to be peeled off the ceiling at every sound and absolutely cacking myself I was going to screw up horribly and kill some poor battlefield hero lad who had to survive so-green-I-was-emerald _me_ emergency operating on him in the dirt…so I can imagine what six months of sleep dep' must have done for you," he commiserated.

He understood where Greg was coming from - he'd encountered the 'worried well', either about themselves or a loved one, back when he'd been a locum at Sarah's surgery, but he'd been stuck to help them, or advise them.

On the one hand he had wanted to point out he had seven years of medical study behind him plus several years' experience at the sharpest end of medical practice – pick the war zones of your choice – and was therefore a professional, just like their solicitor or tax accountant, who didn't get them sat in _their_ offices arguing points of law or HMRC tax regulations.

But having been a patient himself in the most extreme of circumstances, he also got their viewpoint. When the National Health Service had been created in 1948, General Practice had still remained as it was since it's invention in Victorian times – but back then, because no NHS meant you had to pay, even a 'successful' GP might only have just over a hundred or so patients, even here in town. Now, even a one man band could have thousands of registered patients, never mind the multi-GP surgeries, and it was hard enough keeping up to date in one field of medicine, never mind them all.

As Sarah herself had wearily admitted at the end of one particularly fraught day, why should any reasonably intelligent adult take as gospel the verdict of someone they were lucky to get more than a two to five minute consultation appointment with every fifth year with an x it, a doctor (assuming they wouldn't be fobbed off onto the practice nurse) who spent those minutes glued to a computer screen and who sometimes didn't know them from Adam even if he or she wasn't a locum?

And thanks to Britain's so-far still free press and exposé books like _The Patient Paradox _and _Cracked_, which revealed how there was no scientific basis for a lot of the pills, potions and lotions doled out by GPs, the patient _knew_ the doctor received a variety of financial incentives or other perks to concentrate on recommending and doling out statins – that didn't do you much good at all if you were a woman – Viagra (with no regard for female partners unenthused by this artificially created man-slut male nymphomaniac they were suddenly lumbered with) - and a variety of other social-work-on-the-cheap anti-this-that-and-the-other Department of Health tick-boxes whilst people with _real _medical problems got ignored because their problems were too expensive or difficult to cure quick and fast for the headline grabbing statistics…and particularly when said 'worried well' or even genuinely ill were just as likely, probably even more so, to accurately self-diagnose by spending several hours researching for themselves online.

Besides, the NHS was doing a terrific job in destroying its own reputation, by such things as continuing with the pseudo-scientific scam that was 'BMI' because it saved them a fortune, rather than on pursuing what alleviated pain and suffering in sick people. Then there was the time he'd talked to Sarah concerned about the low immunisation levels the surgery, and she'd explained that since the triple MMR vaccine-autism scandal of the late 1990s, the parents at her surgery were middle-class enough to be able to afford to do exactly what they did – privately have the vaccines administered as single jabs over a period of time: '_John,_ _it's not about whether Dr Wakefield is onto something with a possible link between the MMR vaccine causing autism in susceptible children, or whether he's not onto anything…what it's about is that the British Government arbitrarily robbed private citizens – parents – of the right to choose between having the MMR and single vaccines by refusing to import single vaccines. The thing is we all live in a much more clued-up plugged-in world now, so everyone knew then as they still know perfectly well now that our Government did that purely as a cost-cutting exercise…'_

'…_And absolutely no care or concern about the welfare of children, which is why so many people are ready to believe there is a link – if there is one – and why so few of the worried well trust a word their GP says, because they know we're being funded to dole out statins and Ritalin and Fluoxetine and nicotine patches like sweeties to look good in the evening news cycle not to help poorly people get better,' he acknowledged wearily._

'_Yeah, which is why those parents who can afford to, and who are sensible enough to have a deep scepticism about everything anyone in any official capacity tells them is true, or accurate, or the way they __**should**__ be doing something, routinely book their kids in a Calais or Bruges or Le Havre GP surgery and pay for a series of single vaccines. The British Medical Association had to publicly apologise on the front page of several newspapers after it was discovered to have invented supposed 'safe alcohol consumption' levels out of thin air at the pressurising of the Blair Government instead of having the spine to tell the politicians that the science isn't settled on that…is it any wonder Joe Average doesn't a believe a word anyone in a white coat says, or anyone in an official capacity, come to that?'_

And so it went on…The most inappropriately named drug licensing QUANGO in the history of the world, NICE, was an explicit example of that. Not to mention the medical profession's brutally exposed ineffectiveness. Back in 1987 a GP caught inappropriately self-prescribing addictive medications had written a critical article in the British Medical Journal over how he had escaped with not even a slap on the wrist and pointing out that due to the archaic, ponderous bureaucracy of the British Medical Association – effectively a Victorian style 'old boys' club' - he could essentially do whatever he liked, secure in the knowledge he would have been retired for years, and possibly even deceased, by the time the BMA got around to censuring or even investigating him.

That GP's name had been Harold Shipman, and the article was now widely public knowledge and acknowledged for its secret subtext of hiding in plain sight: _I'm a serial killer and you'll never catch me_. The thing was, Shipman had been right – as Mike Stamford had said one night when a bunch of them got into 'drunken doctors setting the world to rights' – if Harold Shipman hadn't become avaricious as well as murderous and tried to forge a victim's will – badly - in his own favour, he would still be quietly and congenially murdering his patients until he retired.

"Everything I looked at just seemed to add to the nightmare," Greg was saying now, breaking into his brief wool-gathering. "Susan does have her moments, don't we all? But her situation and condition are usually nothing like the laundry list of woe waiting to happen the doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, counsellors, social workers and the rest of the 'ists' and 'ers' kept shoving under our noses. Alexithymia was the first label flung: an inability to correct interpret emotions in others, showing a theoretical-only knowledge but no understanding of other people's emotions and feelings, nor any ability to modulate their own strong emotions resulting in temper tantrums and outbursts of crying, shouting and rage -"

_Check, and check_.

"- idiosyncratic behaviour – "

_Check._

" – overly precise language that shows excellent technical and logical articulation but inability to explain abstractions or express feelings – "

_Check._

" – unusual hobbies or pursuit of specific and narrow areas of interest – "

_Can we say: I'm a Consulting Detective, I'm the only one; I invented it myself_.

"Asocial behaviour and speech, presenting as arrogant or spiteful, with an impaired ability to perceive and respond in socially appropriate ways to nonverbal cues – or, as Romie said, Suzy would be rude as standard and oblivious to how she was offending and upsetting others."

_Check, most definitely_.

"Usually exacerbates or inflames rather than defuses interpersonal conflicts – "

_In spades._

"Overly literal, oblivious to sarcasm, banter and metaphor –"

_Check – Sherlock jokes about as well as Gordon Brown ran the economy._

"High intelligence with extremely low tolerance for what is perceived as mundane and ordinary – "

_Check and check._

"And the big winner of selective mutism, which is where the bugger refuses to speak at all to the majority of people and talking excessively only to the very few people they choose to 'like'."

_Check, check and check: Ladies and gentleman, we have a winner: Mr Sherlock Holmes, come on down…_and cleared up just why out of all the Met's finest, Greg Lestrade had done 'the impossible' and continued to handle Sherlock so well – he'd been dealing with Sherlock's style of BS courtesy of his daughter back when _the _Sherlock was a just a teenage toe-rag convinced he was smarter than everyone else in the world – just like every other adolescent on the planet, in short – and streaming live from mummy's basement, or more likely wine cellar, given what he and Mycroft were like, in a self-promoting determination to prove it.

"And now you're dealing with another example day in and day out too," he acknowledged.

"He –" Lestrade paused and they both stepped back as a harassed looking plainclothes officer apologetically came through and past carrying a couple of bulky files (and cast envious eyes at John's just-finished mug of tea).

"Funny as it sounds, he's actually helped us deal with what Suzy does – _unknowingly,_" Greg said the last word with a mild emphasis that made it clear he expected it to stay that way.

"Hm," he likewise interjected a certain amount of scepticism into the word-whisker.

"You may have noticed that he can be a bit abrupt and peremptory when he's working – or when he thinks he's onto something."

"You mean those funny little idiosyncrasies like bellowing your name up at your bedroom at two-thirty a.m. and when you go pelting down to the first floor ready to take on a tooled-up CIA squad wanting to party it turns out he just wants a cuppa tea, or bundling you in a taxicab to the wilds of Wales with nothing but a webcam Wi-Fi laptop and Skype and marching you up and down some muddy stream bank like the Grand Old Duke of York because some hiker's been mysteriously bludgeoned at the back of the head with no murder weapon and nobody near him?" It was said with a hint of asperity.

Lestrade didn't bother to hide his smirk. "Imagine a regular routine like that – when your wife and kids have got ringside seats."

_Forget James Moriarty, Romie Lestrade is the biggest threat to Sherlock Holmes from the sound of it_.

"Yeah, but it sounds as though at least he's got you and your missus back 'on' again." He had picked up on the couple of 'my wife' rather than 'my ex-wife' slips, remembering Lestrade's self-described on-off relationship with his ex-wife when they'd been hunting Jeff Hope.

To his surprise a faint ruddiness tinged Greg's cheeks and the man flicked a glance around the room before beginning to instinctively lower his voice further.

"Don't whisper," he vetoed at a normal decibel level. "The human species is hard-wired to eavesdrop, gossip, rubber-neck and nosey because the human brain is obsessed with constant data input that it collates, compares and contrasts to ensure that sabre-toothed death isn't lurking three feet away in the shrubbery. That's why you can't hear a word of the normal conversation taking place at the next table in the restaurant but you can make out the whispered exchange the next-table-but-one over as your brain focusses its attention on making sure that it's not missing that duo talking about how they've spotted the sabre-toothed tiger behind you and are planning an exit strategy to leg it whilst it's distracted chowing down on you. Low octave sounds like whispers carry much further than normal higher level conversation tonal pitch."

"Right," Greg blinked at this compressed science lesson and then gave that trade mark mini-shoulder shrug of his before admitting in a conversational tone, "We split up when Suzy was little…but 'cause it was money worries and carer stress not adultery…"

"External factors not you yourselves," he showed his understanding.

"Yeah…we managed to be all civilised and quickie divorce. We were even able to agree that the girls would live with Romie at the home and the boys would live with me, because at the time my grand-uncle invited me to move in as his co-tenant up at Hampstead and said I could bring the two boys with me. It's a decent sized Regency townhouse with a proper garden – ideal for kids, and Uncle Grey didn't want just him rattling round the place but wasn't going to sell off a family home, y'know?"

"Grey?"

"Gravenor Pelham William Lestrade." The words were drily enunciated.

Maybe it was mandatory for Britons of a certain social class to have names that could only be described as _what-the-fu-_

"It's the legend." Probably Lestrade 'read' his uppermost thoughts, doubtless with the ease of long practice.

"Legend?"

Greg took a swig of his tea and waved the hand holding it vaguely, making it slosh alarmingly up the sides of the mug, but fortunately not overspill. "It's doubtless been mangled through time, but the basic gist is that the first _le Strade_ was a Norman peasant cannon fodder hauled over the channel with the rest of 'em in 1066, but that he managed to duck and dive getting whacked at Hastings and then worked smarter not harder and married above his weight to member of the deposed English Saxon royal family."

"Huh-huh." He murmured sceptically.

"Preaching to the choir mate, like my mum always said, _a man over-proud of his ancestry is like a potato, the best part of which is underground_."

He sniggered. "Seriously?

"Oh yeah, she used to pretend to get snockered then declaim it in stentorian voice whenever Aunt Ardith Lestrade used to start up about being descended from England's 'true' Royal Family at weddings…and funerals. Anyway, the fairytale goes that they in turn had a daughter named Wulfrida after some Saxon queen, and she ended up as a serving maid in the Royal Household…"

"Fairy godmother or wicked stepmother enters stage left?"

"Neither…but by all accounts Wulfrida was badass enough on her own. As a lowly serving wench it seemed Prince William Rufus supposedly did that whole _droit de seignior _thing and she dropped a rugrat she named _Guillaume_ after his dad, supposedly prince William Rufus, later King William II, although she had more children apparently fathered by him and-stroke-or his brothers Robert Curthose and King Henry I."

There was nothing polite you could comment about that, so he didn't, glad the general hubbub meant Greg's explanation was lost in the crowd.

"Yeah, exactly," Greg murmured wryly. "The story is that she had all her B vitamins – blonde, beautiful, buxom and bootylicious – but most of all that she combined _looking_ as vapid as an airbag with not only being more intelligent than anyone else in a thousand mile radius but being wise enough to make sure nobody ever found out she was. Some of the more excitable Lestrade legends include that she swapped out her own bastard new-born children at least twice with Henry I and Queen Matilda's sickly new-borns and they were raised as heirs to the throne, including the Empress Matilda..."

He got nothing and it showed.

Rolling his eyes slightly Greg explained, "Empress Matilda and her cousin Stephen of Blois kicked off the decade long _First _English Civil War, cosily nicknamed the Anarchy. Which Matilda won by proxy as Stephen had no surviving sons so had little option but to make her son his heir as the next King Henry II."

"So if Wulfrida did swap out Henry I and Matilda's daughter for her daughter by William Rufus – "

"Uh-uh, dead a couple of years by then."

"Or Henry I himself or Uncle Tom Cobleigh an' all, who became the Empress Maud, mum of Henry II, then our current HM and your ancestress Wulfrida…"

"It's been mentioned. Anyway, whatever, she and her kids did very well for themselves despite technically being half-Saxon serfs under Norman feudalism. But, for reasons that have long been lost she _also _insisted that every one of her male descendants who was born with the surname Lestrade have a Christian name that begins with a 'G'."

"I've got to ask…" he admitted.

Greg's lips twisted slightly. "My granddad and uncle Grey are identical twins…my granddad's name is Grosvenor Armine Rex….unsurprisingly he's been known as Rex Lestrade all his life."

"Come back Mama Holmes, all is forgiven," he quipped glancing over at where Sherlock was haranguing Donovan over the data.

"You have no idea...my dad and me always genuflect respectively to Granddad and then Dad for not lumbering either of us with anything more onerous than Guy Rupert Ernest and Gregory Richard James. My great-great-great-grandfather Bill Lestrade was one of the founding members of Sir Robert Peel's _Bow Street Runners_, its why police work has been a tradition ever since in the family."

"Go on…?"

"Gengulphus Alderney William Joseph Lestrade."

"There's some brutal work pulled at the font."

"Well, in his mum and dad's defence, again for reasons lost to history, it's also a family rule that a G-name couldn't be used until the previous living family member christened with it had died. Which my cousin Grant – who did a lot of research into our clan – assured me is a rule most family history researchers would _kill_ to have been imposed on a merry-go-round myriad of Mary, Jane, John, William, Henry and so on. But with the Lestrade family…It wouldn't be so bad if your loins tended to 'go to girls' or produce a fifty-fifty sex split –"

"Oh thank you _so_ much for that imagery mate, pass the _brain bleach_ please."

"Sorry," Greg drawled in a tone at odds with the word he'd said. "But for some reason the Lestrade family have always been top-heavy with lads that tended to live to grow up so the 'freeing up of names' got a bit tricky. Poor old Bill the prototype bobby was the seventh-born son of a seventh-born son – and his dad had three younger brothers to boot - so by the time his parents got to him they were desperate…especially since his father's parents had had two rare daughters inserted in the roll call of sons..."

He mentally totted up the number of progeny of Gengulphus' paternal Lestrade grandparents – two girls, plus seven sons, then another three sons make twelve, and from Greg's wry expression he guessed correctly – and made the weak pun: "Mum and Dad Lestrade gave the girls G-names to go with their G-spots?"

"Yeah – Georgette and Gabrielle, both of them healthy as oxen, fertile as rabbits and as moral as alley cats – each one landed a plum life as the kept woman of some big _nouveau riche_ oligarch textile mill owner churning out several ego-boosting and money-spinning bastard sons and each being set for life in a plush London townhouse with servants into the bargain – not bad for an agricultural labouring family in the eighteenth century, but…"

"But since illegitimate children were usually given the surname of the mother, which was _Lestrade_ and the family rule was every descendent of Wulfrida's born with her surname had to be a G-man…Hum, yes, especially if they were too inconsiderate to be sickly and die young that would soon cause an issue."

"In spades, mate…Sane and sensible names like George, Graham, Geoffrey, Gideon, Godfrey, and Giles were still in use, as were atypical but decent monikers like Gabriel, Gareth, Gerald, Gervase, Grant and even quirky but acceptable like Garfield, Geraint, Goddard, Granville, Grey, Grayson. There was always a bit of a family hoo-hah about Gerard, Garth and Grenville and Gilbert…"

"Yeah, the argument would be that they're not different names, just variants of Gerald Gareth and Granville and I suppose an extension of Giles."

"Exactly…That's how I got Romie to go out with me at first – told her about Bill the Bow Street Runner and dared her that she had to go on a date with me for as many times as she guessed his first name wrong….even told her the initial was 'G'… We were up to Date Number Seven and doing a pub quiz when I was the only one in any team – in the entire place, actually - to get the right answer to: what 'G' was the real life individual whom P. G. Wodehouse used as one of the names of the Liverpudlian newspaperman L.G. Trotter, because of which he refused a knighthood, in _Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit_, and what was his occupation?'

He dredged up from some long ago Forfeit Drinking Game knowing the answer to had got him free whisky shots… "_Gengulphus_…the…French…_Saint_?"

"Yeah, Lemuel Gengulphus Trotter. Of course, Romie realised straight up that there was no sane way I should have known _that_ bit of trivia unless there was compelling reason…"

He waited as Greg's face softened momentarily from the stern, stoic repose of _Detective Inspector to you, sonny, _Lestrade of Her Majesty's Metropolitan Police, in the memories.

"Anyway it took us about fourteen months and a great deal of subtlety on Uncle Grey's part before we both realised we'd chucked the baby out with the bathwater as it were when we divorced….but…" Greg shook his head slightly. "The fact is that we can't afford _not_ to stay divorced. We sat down and did some honest talking…a few mutual home truths made it uncomfortable but we needed to do it…then we did some just-the-facts-number crunching and that was that. As a working single mum with a disabled kid…as working single _parents_ we started getting the benefits and allowances and state support – like a live-in nanny for Suzy for f- goodness' sake – that we should always have had but were never told about because the people who just struggle on emotionally drowning till they have a nervous breakdown under the strain save them a fortune in funding and budget balancing before they crack up. Even with Romie's mortgage and my rent to Uncle Grey and topping up the kids' scholarship school fees we're still far better off financially and logistically – we couldn't afford to live in London if we moved back in together. And the only thing that matters is…"

"That the kids are okay with it?" he guessed perceptively.

"Yeah – Gregor said it to us, '_as long as you and mum are together-together, which is all we want, the one 'g' that doesn't matter to us is geography_.' To be honest, even if we did remarry we wouldn't move back in together, at least not without having a bedroom _each_. This way the kids have plenty of room, we all have a space to decompress, and having to put more time and effort into it reminds us of how important it is, and not being under each other's feet twenty-four-seven means we always have something interesting to talk to each other about." Greg nodded over at Sherlock, "Which is also why _you_ never tell His Nibs or Big Brother I 'M' anything or confide in them, instead you make them work for their pay."

"It builds character," he smirked, but again Greg was very astute – Sherlock was hyperactive and mercurial and he had rapidly realised that being an 'open book' to the man, to either or both the damnable duo, would quickly get him moved to the 'boring' box inside Sherlock's head – oh sorry, _Mind Palace _– which would then get him moved _out_ of 221B Baker Street in favour of a more interesting room-mate…who could be the likes of Sebastian Moran…

He suppressed a shudder and instead diverted by bringing Greg back round to his comment about how Suzy Lestrade had helped him deal with Sherlock, albeit unwittingly.

"One night he called me out at three a.m. – it was the Ford case, at the time, I'll tell you about it sometime – and when I got back home at…blimey, gone midnight the next day…Uncle Grey was away in France so I'd had to leave Gregor and Guy to do the latch-key thing and me and Romie had a bit of a ding-dong about it. It had escalated to the stage where Unforgivable Unforgettable things were in danger of being blurted out when suddenly I had an inspiration – I said I was surprised she wasn't grateful for all the invaluable training we were getting."

"Well, clearly she didn't batter you to death with a rolling pin," he noted, "so you must have managed to talk your way out of that daft statement to make to an angry woman."

"Only just, I think." The admission was rueful. "I talked with the inspiration born of self-preservation – I pointed out that once upon a time, Sherlock Holmes _had _to have been an angelic-faced little boy – certainly with those cheekbones –"

"Although his middle name should probably have been 'Damien'?"

"Heh, yeah – good that. Then I said – _if you can't hack it now, what are you going to do a decade from now, when puberty kung-fu kicks down our door and teenage hormones turn our little girl into an angry autistic adolescent? _That gave us both pause for thought. It's not been easy, but we've coped ever since."

"Especially now you've a got new babysitter to feed and wind him," he pointed out dryly.

"They reckon it builds character," Greg quipped his own phrase back at him unapologetically but then became serious, "but that's why I called him in on this – because of you, I got to the music recital. Thing is…" Greg looked down at his mug, which had the 'World's Best Dad' cliché on the side

He moved closer as Greg spoke softly with a bit of self-shamefaced emotion – coppers and medics were the best worst gossipers in the world but also were Olympic Gold standard in W_e Don't Have Any Emo' Crap or Showing of Feelings Around Here because We Are Hard Bastards Not Wimps, Pansies or Little Girlies._

Lestrade explained, "Being twins the girls have got each other, and being so close in age, Greg and Guy are the same. Romie has always been very close to her brother, Dunc, and his family lives just up the road from her…but I'm an only child and Suzy's…one on her own…music is our thing, me and Suzy…it's how we connect and how she connects with the world…and it's a logistical nightmare getting to the extra-curricular stuff even on good days – 'rounding out the whole child' they call it now or some such jargon. Romie works at a different school to the three that the kids go to – there's nothing worse than to have a parent or a parent's sibling working at the school you go to with all your mates – I had that with my uncle Giles Lestrade for four years of hell and I wasn't having it with our kids, but Romie's Deputy Headmistress now and me –"

"You're always up to your neck in complex homicides, chasing serial killers, stopping terrorists blowing up half of town, arrogant corporate fraudsters and political scalding hot potatoes, all of which are 'top priority, must be fixed yesterday' and can't be left under any circumstances, et cetera." He rattled off his understanding of the litany of woe and how it meant it must be routinely impossible for Greg to do a duty shift and leave at a sane hour, and neither he nor his wife could afford to not be working…he couldn't even begin to imagine what it must be like, raising five kids in London on a copper's salary and a teacher's…no wonder when the couple had come to their senses and started acting like grown-ups again they had found to their chagrin that they simply could not afford to reconcile, at least officially.

Henry Knight _was _rich, and after the Hounds of Baskerville case he'd sent a nice fat cheque to them, with a cheery letter because Sherlock had proved he wasn't bonkers at all, and he'd decided to telephone the girl whose number he'd written on his train napkin after all, and she was definitely his type. The letter was pinned to the mantelpiece by Sherlock's Swiss army knife, and the cheque had gone straight into the bank, but even so, and even with Mrs Humphrey, Mrs du Lac and Mrs Olegenski, there were months when checking their bank statement caused him to suck in his cheeks and worry his lower lip. If _he_ felt like that supporting Mrs Hudson – by supporting just himself and his _enfant terrible _'I'm a genius I am' room-mate - goodness only knew what Lestrade's payday blood pressure was like, or how often he had to eat or heat, or batter 'Peter' in a dark alley to slip the blood-spattered cash to 'Paul'…

"Pretty much…So I'm returning the favour, because I know what _he's _like when the _boredom_ sets in." Greg nodded at _Mr I Have Dramatic Cheekbones and I Know It._ "It might be something, though it's probably nothing, but it should keep him occupied for a day or two – three, if we're really lucky."

"While you get on with some proper police work," He said it without rancour, because Greg was right – by the time the news had come on last night, he'd recognised the signs of 'twitchy', of incipient acting out and there had been nothing on the website interesting enough for Sherlock – yet.

Greg, of course, had the benefit of previous years' experience in knowing what stage of the 'cycle' Sherlock was at and in acting to postpone or avert PMT – Petulant Manic Tantrum – outbursts. Even from just skimming a few of the cases Sherlock had consulted on for the Met before last year when he got sucked into the vortex of the Holmes' brothers, he had no doubt that more than one of them Greg Lestrade could and would have solved himself – again it showed Lestrade's lack of arrogance and self-aggrandizement that he must have deliberately brought Sherlock in on cases for no other reason than to help Sherlock get over his 'boredom bouts' even though he knew he himself would be robbed of credit.

"As someone else has probably said, we may not have invented bureaucracy, but we have perfected it."

He recognised the deflection, and accepted it. One of his best NCOs had been an upbeat quip-meister, a 'two and twenty year' enlisted career soldier who used droll wit to subtly deflect areas of conversation that got too close to horrible memories – the man had served in Northern Ireland, the Falklands and various NATO/UN missions, and had seen unspeakable atrocities. Even in today's Political Correctness-ruined modern Met, you didn't get to be a Detective Inspector by sitting on your backside composing worksheets for ethno-centric diversity-awareness anti-gender psycho-linguistics yoga workshops…yet, anyway.

"And of course this is how you're training _him_," he commented, "for his rematch with Moriarty."

Levity vanished entirely from Lestrade's expression. "No flies on you are there; Doctor," he stated rather than asked rhetorically.

"In my old job, they got shot off." he asked straightforwardly, "Did you know…with Jennifer Wilson…?"

Instinctively they both glanced over at the man in question, who had two twin dibs of colour high on those cheekbones, bespeaking that yes, he was interested enough in what he would no doubt call 'Lestrade's amusing little puzzle' to take the bait. _Thank you, Lord_, _from My Sanity. _

"Not initially but something made me look deeper," Greg began very, very _sotto voce_, lips barely moving at all in a manner that told him that Lestrade had done his deeper looking on a very private QT with nobody else in the Met knowing about it -

Almost as if wishing to prove Lestrade's detective _bona fides_, Sherlock barked, "John!"

As if in well-practiced synchronicity, he and Greg sneakily deposited their empty tea mugs on an unoccupied desk and smoothly glided into the thick of the room where Sherlock held the attention of everyone, even his haters attending to the sheer charismatic intensity of the man.

Sherlock turned his head sharply, fretfully, but launched straight into his deductions to Lestrade as soon as John was right there, three feet away and a foot back to the right, a solidly dependable _gallowglass _exactly where he should be…

© 2012, The Cat's Whiskers

All rights reserved

**Author's Note:**

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was developed out of Judo, a Japanese based martial art and was developed with the premise that a smaller/weaker victim could defend against a larger/stronger attacker by taking them to the ground, thus negating the height/weight advantage of the attacker by applying joint-dislocating holds to the nearest digit or appendage – throat, thumb, knee, elbow. Scott Caan, son of actor (and martial artist) James Caan, is a practitioner of BJJ.

_Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm and Good _by James Davies, _Bad Pharm: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients _by Ben Goldacre and _The Patient Paradox: Why sex-up medicine is bad for your health _by Dr Margaret McCarthy

Wulfthryth, Anglicised as Wulfrida, was the wife and also queen regnant of Aethelred (Ethelred) I (b.837, s.865, d.871) – not to be confused with his descendent, "Ethelred II the Unready". During that period the _cwean _was usually the wife of the king, rather than being crowned queen consort or queen regnant (co-ruler) in her own right. It is possible Wulfrida was crowned queen regnant alongside her husband to raise her status to that of her husband's stepmother/sister-in-law, Queen Emeritus of Wessex Judith, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Bald. However, a legal charter of 868 A.D., three years into her husband's reign, refers to her as _Wulfthryth Regina_, indicating a female monarch (the male is _Regis_) ruling in her own right – had she been Ethelred's queen consort she would have been listed as _Wulfthryth cwean_. She and Ethelred had two sons, Ethelholm (865-890) and Ethelwold (868-902), later King of Northumbria. Ethelwold's death in battle apparently ended a 'rising star' life. Wulfrida and Ethelred were ancestors of Ethelweard, the 10th Century historian, and Ethelnoth, the 11th Century Archbishop of Canterbury. They were also ancestors of King Harald II Godwinson, the last Saxon King of England killed at Hastings fighting William I the Conqueror, whom ironically was married to Harald II's cousin, the Saxon queen presumptive, Matilda. Whilst William claimed the English crown by conquest, his children through his wife could claim the throne by family inheritance.

(NB: Æthel (pronounced ay-thel not Eh-thel) is Anglo-Saxon for 'prince' – the Ætheling was the crown prince, the heir apparent, and his brothers would all have names starting with Æthel as Prince Holm (Æthelholm) etc.)

The great British humorous writer P.G. Wodehouse deeply disliked his given names: Pelham Grenville, and this became abbreviated to 'Plum' for most of his life. Despite his dislike of his name, his eminent family history provided ample fodder for his habit of giving his characters odd names: his two elder brothers were Philip Peveril John and Ernest Armine, whilst the fourth son, considerably younger, was Richard Lancelot Deane Wodehouse. Plum's great-grandmother bore up nobly under the name of Appolonia Nourse.

The first English Civil War was known as the 'Anarchy', ranging from 1135-1153, characterised by repeated skirmishes between 'King' Stephen and Empress Matilda and the general breakdown in law and social order do to the constant flux of first one side then the other gaining and losing the political ascendancy. The situation was especially difficult in South East England, known as the 'Home Counties'. The murder-mystery series, _Cadfael_, written by 'Ellis Peters' (Edith Pargeter 1913-1995) and starring Derek Jacobi in the TV adaptations, was historically accurate and reflects the stress and uncertainty of everyone living in what was the equivalent of Nazi occupied France or a totalitarian state where what was patriotism on Monday when King Stephen's troops were in control was treason on Tuesday when the Empress Matilda wrested control and vice versa.

King Henry I of England, fourth-born son of William I Conqueror had only two legitimate children by his Scottish Queen Consort, Matilda, William Adelin and Matilda, who may have been twins. Matilda had his illegitimate daughter and an illegitimate son, Richard, prior to their marriage. Matilda was married at the age of eight to the Holy Roman Emperor. Henry I was a serial adulterer and hopelessly promiscuous, having numerous illegitimate children by various women, albeit many were capable, intelligent men and women. His only legitimate son William was killed at age 17 on 25th – 26th November 1120. The prince and the royal entourage intended to return across the English Channel from Barfleur, France, in the _White Ship_, the swiftest and most modern ship in the royal fleet – 'transnational' water traffic between Southern England and Northern France, separated at the closest point by only 20 miles, was unremarkable at that time. The royal group, a large entourage of noblemen and women, knights, squires, servants, bodyguards, armsmen, etc., were largely all drunk by the time they finally moved aboard the ship well after dark, after having been waiting for some time to see, ironically, whether William's cousin, Stephen of Blois (the son of Henry's sister, Adela), would make the journey due to sickness and diarrhoea, before Stephen eventually decided he was too ill to make the trip – which ironically saved his life and caused The Anarchy fifteen years later; Stephen's daughter, Lucia-Mahaut, Countess of Chester, remained on board and drowned.

By that time pretty much everyone aboard, including the crew – amounting to 300 people give or take a few – was seriously drunk. Setting out hours behind schedule in the dark, William gave the command for the ship to 'catch up with' and 'pass' the previously departed ship carrying his wife and others so he could get to England first; too drunk to refuse this foolish order, the ship's crew hit a notorious partly-submerged rock in the bay and the ship stuck fast, beginning to sink. Obeying the stringent command of King Henry, William's personal bodyguard got himself and the prince into a small two person rowboat and away from the listing ship – however, with several of William's close friends such as the Earl of Chester and several illegitimate half-siblings such as Richard of Lincoln and the Comtess de Perche calling for help from the main deck, the bodyguard made the mistake of letting William return to rescue his family – the panicking people all scrambled to get in the hopelessly inadequate boat together, which promptly capsized. Drunk, unable to see in the dark, floundering in icy cold water and being grabbed and struck by myriad others, weighed down by layers of clothing and jewellery/weaponry or armour and with no ships near them to render aid, everyone drowned within minutes, with the exception of two survivors, a French butcher and Geoffrey l'Aigle.

The disaster wiped out the heirs or in place nobility of many English and French families, plus their middle-class courtiers and the relatives of peasant families who had been 'onto a good thing' by obtaining work with the Royal and noble families. Richard d'Avranches, 2nd Earl of Chester and his wife Lucia-Mahout and his illegitimate half-brother Ottuel all died, and 'ghastly bloated corpses, almost mocking in their rich, bejewelled apparel' were washing up on both coastlines depending on the tides for weeks afterwards. The Earldom of Chester, for example, devolved to the son of his father's sister.

Henry I never really recovered from the shock of losing so many of his children at one go – a widower he almost immediately remarried to a Frenchwoman in desperation to sire a legitimate son, but by that time he was well into middle-age and riddled with a variety of social diseases that probably rendered him sterile due to his long-term immorality. He had the English nobility accept Matilda as his heir, but upon his death in 1135 they immediately reneged citing coercion, and offered the throne to Stephen of Blois. Matilda, having been at the court of her late husband the Holy Roman Emperor, is portrayed in history as a haughty, arrogant figure, insisting on the title of Empress and generally alienating those who would have supported her with a grandiose attitude of entitlement. Similarly, history records Stephen as a personally brave but morally weak man, vacillating and inconsistent. After years of intermittent war, Stephen's heir Eustace died suddenly in 1153, a few months before his father and Matilda seized the opportunity to negotiate that her son, Henry, become Stephen's heir over his only surviving legitimate son, William (who would die anyway in 1159). When Stephen died in 1153 Henry II was accepted as King by those desperate to see the end of the ever-dragging conflict and by William, Stephen's younger son who seemed to have little enthusiasm for the throne anyway.

A considerable 'headache' to family historians, probably everywhere, is the gross unimaginative naming habits of parents. It was not uncommon for a couple to have between 8 – 16 children, all named after various relatives and common saints, and to have anywhere between 80-100 plus grandchildren during their own lifetime, again all named after relatives, friends and religious figures. Unfortunately, every other couple/family were doing the same thing, so you get profusions and generations of John, William, Edward, Henry, Mary, Elizabeth, Margaret, etc., etc., and virtually nothing to distinguish John son of John son of John from the uncle/cousin/granddad of the same name.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Disclaimer and etc.:**__ See Chapter 1_

**Holmesian Logic**

**Part I**

**Chapter 6**

_The sun is shining…but it's raining in my heart_…

The highly apropos lyrics, wailed out soulfully by - of all people - David Coverdale in his _Whitesnake_ days, double-echoed for a moment as the sound waves bounced between the brick walls of the street's multi-storey buildings, before being snatched away as the tricked out town car with the twin exhausts and tinted windows took the corner like the driver was the lovechild of Bodie and Doyle on steroids.

He granted 'Da Yoof'a moment of being impressed with the musicality, as usually those kids pulverised their own brains and battered the ears of all within a half-mile radius with a relentless throbbing soundtrack of _boom-boom-boom-boom_ interspersed with snatches of some foul-mouthed bigoted Gangstaaaaa Crapper spewing verbal filth and hate (on those rare occasions when actually comprehensible) at the sort of octave level a _real bloke _could usually only achieve when he'd just been whacked in the 'nads by an angry kneecap. He would bet his Army pension that obnoxious _Copyright Licencing Agency_ that pestered corner shops and one-man-band garages for a £300 fee to play the radio at one decibel above a whisper in a cathedral never went after the likes of that gangsta-crap/Gangnam-style wannabe for breaking the same copyright laws as he just had done with his in-car stereo.

The sun was indeed shining for once across most of London, as if wanting to remind people that it was Friday and _nearly _the weekend, and the bouquet from the florist's he'd collected this morning did look lovely though of course he lacked the feminine ability to appreciate the subtlety of his choices – but he had thought she would like it and it did look –

"You've got an hour thirty, tops, probably an hour max to get back to Baker Street before him."

He didn't jump at the quiet voice from behind him, just turned his head in acknowledgement and silent invitation as Greg Lestrade spoke from several yards behind him. He was – his literal inner metal rather than inner mettle twinged as if in reminder – he _had been_ career military from the age of 18, and had spent most of his adult life in places where '_being oblivious to your surroundings'_ got you dead.

It was funny really – he could be Britain's worst serial killer, just by discreetly taking out random pedestrians with poisoned umbrellas whilst they were shopping in Knightsbridge because once he'd memorised how to avoid the ubiquitous CCTV cameras, he could probably parade up and down it naked, or in a pink tutu, or as in the famous observation skills experiment, a gorilla suit, and nobody in this iPhone, iPod, iPad mini, Android smart-phone, Blackberry, 4G HD whatever blinkered and ear-stopped-up world would notice if he was an inch from their face and so there would be no eye-witnesses.

And since when did he idly plot how to pull off mass murder sprees as a way to exercise his brain in theoretical logistics? _Since the git with the dramatic cheekbones railroaded you into enabling his insanity and is showing no inclination to let you go again_. He didn't doubt that Greg Lestrade, to a lesser extent, understood that feeling all too well.

His inner physician discreetly checked the man himself as Lestrade stood next to him, hands in pockets in that habitual slight slouch he had, his slightly creased suit and slightly pulled down skewed tie combined with that grey-but-distinguished-looking-not-old-bloke-looki ng hair making him appear…how had Molly Hooper put it?... '_rakishly masculine_ rather than just _a scruffy get_'

However, he noted the crispness of the shirt-front and the lack of fluff on the suit, and above all the lack of sclerotic eyes, which meant Greg had had the opportunity to sleep in his own bed and shower, shave and dress at home at least this morning if not before, thanks to Sherlock's involvement. But to borrow from the (maybe-but-somehow-I-doubt-it) 'late' Irene Adler, his fashion 'self-portrait' was also a very effective disguise. The slightly rumpled, hands in pockets, tiny slouched affable diffidence made him appear to be - and appear to be as unthreatening as - a tax accountant…_What, him, a big bad Police Inspector? Naaaah_…_Me, police officer, well yeah…but I'm a marshmallow, mate, just look at me…_

"Ta. He's solved it then?"

"Solved it yesterday morning, apparently," Greg shrugged. "I've just sicced Anderson and Donovan on the suspect to make the arrest. But Sherlock's on some research stroke experiment thing for his next blog on…sub-categories of soil?"

He shrugged. "Sounds about right...he's up to 42 types now, but he's back on it again, especially since the Maui thing." He reminded.

"Oh yeah…" Greg nodded.

Sherlock's _Consulting Detective_ website was now linked to his own blog, but a lot of requests and comments and so on came to his blog rather than the website, possibly because people had figured out that Sherlock didn't reply to any contact he thought was boring or trite.

He'd been a bit wary about the request from some fella claiming to be a Detective from some special police unit in Hawaii, Williams, no, Willis, no it _was_ Williams, and had asked Greg to check out the _bona fides_ before passing it on to Sherlock…the last thing they needed was to be _accomplices after the fact_ for J. Moriarty by not failing to check out someone who could be a plant or intermediary for the…Sherlock had told him how Irene Adler had said Moriarty had taken to calling himself a 'Consulting Criminal'…_so derivative…_but Sherlock's eyes had burned not hot and fierce but cold and dark. He'd seen the same look many times before – not the terrorist foot-soldiers, the idiots and brainwashed fanatics who swallowed the nonsense about Paradise and virgins if they blew up a bunch of schoolchildren or murdered women for being literate and too sensible to fall for the drivel, their eyes glowed and burned with irrationality and impenetrable fanatic stupidity, but their puppeteers, who directed their cannon fodder, the imams who preached murder and suicide to glory but avoided anything dangerous like the plague, their eyes were as cold as a Welsh mountain lake in winter, and just as black and dead.

The one, but critical difference was that Sherlock had demonstrated a capacity to learn and the capability to say sorry and mean it. His humanity was fully intact, even though his emotionality needed a bit of gardening work to get it to bloom.

If nothing else, Sherlock would never forgive the psycho git for labelling the younger Holmes brother 'the Virgin'. The thing was, he personally didn't believe Sherlock _was_ a virgin, but he also had no doubt that whatever sexual activity Sherlock had engaged in – or experienced, which was not the same thing – either in Dublin or London, had not been particularly fulfilling or meaningful or enjoyable…He found himself clinging to such notions because otherwise you had to move on to discomfiting terms like unpleasant, involuntary, pressured, coerced.

Sure, he would bet his Army pension (again) that Sherlock was proficient in some type of martial arts self-protection, but the thing about sex and relationships was that Sherlock was both incredibly intelligent, but terrifyingly gullible. What he would formally diagnose as the man's Asperger's Syndrome on the Autistic Spectrum meant that Sherlock didn't do subtext, or nuance or _emotional intelligence_. He would never have sex out of 'chemical passion', but if someone had suggested trying a variety of deviant obscenities in such a way that presented it as a rational experiment in human bodily tolerance, or psychological profiling of pain-pleasure pathology or some rot, Sherlock wouldn't have batted an eyelash before saying yes with no idea he was being played…

And whilst Mycroft _now_ was the Mighty 'M', assuming he _would _have _bothered_ to step in to at least try to protect Sherlock in the first place anyway…not even Mycroft could be in two places at once or have a constant 'surveillance bubble' on the little brother the elder Holmes had, if Mrs Hudson's inferences were true, pretty much forgotten existed as Mycroft hacked and slashed his way up the career ladder of British's secret services (possibly literally), with Sherlock safely compartmentalised as an acne-addled teenager, somewhat precocious but otherwise unremarkable. The perfect 'protection gap' time period for a predator to target the intelligent but unwise; the naïve savant…

He pushed aside the unsettling worries. As it turned out the Hawaii request had been legit and Sherlock's long, complicated email in reply disserting on Oahu pumice flora versus Maui pumice flora was apparently enough for an arrest warrant on circumstantial evidence at which point the previously smug suspect had panicked and rabbited.

This apparently had not been a problem, since according to Greg, '_the 'tec's oppo is apparently his own human personal pit-bull and will not hesitate to run down fleeing felons like a greyhound out the traps when Williams points 'n' goes 'fetch'…Seems his oppo' likes to keep in trim by chasing down bad 'uns.'_

Since they were both standing outside Greg's office in Scotland Yard at that moment, he and Greg had both swept the open plan office at the Met with dyspeptic eyes, noting that here at least, the 'thin blue line' was much more a collection of 'thick blue balls'. He'd never seen so many classic cases of Bureaucrat's Bum, Bingo Wings, Love Handles, Dough Ball Bellies, Chins-in-triplicate and 40DD-cup moobs, and that was on blokes under the big Four-Oh so they didn't even have the excuse of incipient middle-age to fall back on.

The thinnest thing about most of them was the pens they were using to fill in the endless mounds of forms… '_I read his blog…you know PC David Copperfield…about how when he moved to be a copper in Canada they have annual physicals and psych. evaluations and if you don't pass you're out on your ear.' he offered to Greg at the dismal visage of human idleness, wondering which, if any, was technically Lestrade's 'oppo', or 'opposite number', or his police partner, in American English. _

'_Tell me about it.' Greg shook his head in despair. 'But thanks to Political Correctness the UK got rid of all the minimum entry regulations about height and weight, and even a knowledge of the local community and ability to speak the native language because telling someone 'you can't be a copper because you're too fat and too unfit or too short and too stupid or are utterly incomprehensible to any native-born Brit or all of the above' might traumatise them into thirty years of therapy on the taxpayer.'_

_He nodded, 'I worked as a locum here in Town when I first got back…London is practically a Health Tourist Hilton and for ninety-percent of my 'patients' all they needed was to get off their arse and get a job and discover the wonders of personal hygiene instead of spending their days couch potatoing it with super-strength lager.'_

_Greg looked at his 'peers' in general disgust, 'Mirror mirror…When my master plan for world domination comes off, first thing I'm going to do is reinstate every mandatory entry regulation and enforce annual fitness evaluations for the 'whole person', mind as well as body, because half the fatties in here are supposedly phobic this or comfort eat because of some neurosis that, and the other half of the fatties in here are always going on about being big boned…they've got bones so big they should outsize a T-Rex…' _

"I suppose I was pushing it to hope he'd be occupied for three whole days," he considered now – but he felt no vicarious guilt about Sherlock's little tangential investigation.

He'd literally bled buckets for his Queen and his country and all he'd gotten for it was bureaucratic indifference on the military side and an expectation that he just forget all that and settle down as some GP in the new soulless NHS mega-factories…sorry, multi-practice consortia…doling out happy pills to the neurotic and wastrel whilst the industrious and honourable got screwed over in every way but the good one because being genuinely ill or injured couldn't be quick-fixed to look good in the statistics ready for the next news cycle. So the fact that he had had a whole day and a half of Sherlock out of his hair and out from underfoot with the London Met essentially footing the bill – sorry, consultancy fee – bothered him not in the slightest.

"Mm…"

"That was you…" he nodded at the remains of the _other_ flowers – nothing big or ostentatious, just the remains of more than one small posy; simple flowers, peonies and the like.

He didn't want to look like a flash git with his own bouquet so he explained it: "I wanted to…dunno…apologise for not being able to get here until I could shake off Sherlock for any reasonable amount of time…he wouldn't get it…it didn't sound as daft in my head." He self-deprecated.

"'_These things do not remember you, beloved; but your touch upon them will not pass. For it was in my heart you moved among them.'_" Greg quoted softly but without embarrassment. "Conrad Aiken…It's what comes of having 'art in the blood' – my great-grandmother was the daughter of the French impressionist, Vernet. I didn't know I wasn't the only one who'd connected the dots…at first…until the undertaker mentioned you'd found out where she was….then I realised that coming here _with_ Sherlock was a non-starter for you…having him all bristling and deliberately obtuse…then I realised that coming here without Sherlock – you'd need the logistical planning that _should_ have gone into planning what came after toppling Saddam."

"Yep." He acknowledged. "I didn't connect the dots for a bit…but something kept niggling at me…at first I thought it was just a smarting ego – y'know, mine…that if Sherlock hadn't clocked it then I was reading way too much into the metaphysical…I took a course in Creative Writing for extra credit at Welbeck…not sure it really gelled with being a _military_ college but anyway…the teacher was really good, kept it sharp and grounded – most people write to be published commercially to make money and she understood that so there was no airy fairy tripe about 'the writer as a personal journey'. I remember her telling us how we had to strike that balance between doing research to add plausibility and verisimilitude to the plot and getting so totally neurotic about it we disappeared up our own jacksies and never actually wrote the damn novel…'_sometimes the curtains are red…because the curtains are red,'_ she said."

"How long have you been waiting to use _verisimilitude_ in context?" Greg quipped.

"Years…literally, after my sister Harry used it on me…not so much War of the Worlds as War of the Words, with us." He didn't want to think about his sister other than check he was still adept at avoiding all contact with her – and vice versa, no doubt. "But then I realised that Sherlock _couldn't_ work it out…'_but that was ages ago, surely she's over that by now…' _should have told me that. It _did_ tell me that, but not for a while afterwards. Too much going on, including our least favourite psycho grabbing me off the street with a tranquiliser gun to dress me in my best suicide vest."

"True, but crazy as it sounds the one thing we have going for us is that at least Moriarty's psychopathy is the flip side of Sherlock's sociopathy – if the idiot had had any sort of _emotional perception_ as well as just _mechanical intellect_ Moriarty would have been shrewd enough to realise _you _entering Sherlock's orbit was a game changer in the Holmes' brothers favour and prudent enough to just take you out with a sniper rifle not a tranquiliser one."

He felt the faint icy prickles raising the hairs on his body as once more he thought of Seb and how his superb marksman skills as a sniper had been how Seb got to the heady heights of Major Moran so quickly whilst his erstwhile best friend got invalided out as a Captain. Had Seb been one of – or maybe the only one of – those snipers with the red dots that had danced over him and Sherlock at the swimming pool where Moriarty had murdered Carl Powers?

That was Seb's M.O. and why he had made his presence known outside the café that morning – he liked to taunt his victims and then disappear – winding them up, nervous and stressed for days, or weeks, or even a couple of months of never-knowing-when-he'd-pop-up again. That was what he intended with poor old John Watson…

Except that was obsolete; Seb was a Luddite in the Digital age…Seb was still pressing the buttons on a Sony Walkman and he was an iPhone now, all smooth screen strokes. He genuinely had only given the man fleeting thought since that morning, in part because he _knew_ Seb fondly imagined him twitching and flinching at every shadow 24/7…because that was one of the few, but key differences between the psychopath and the sociopath – a psychopath was doomed from the moment of birth, because like a prehistoric fly preserved in amber, he or much more rarely she _couldn't_ change or develop whereas with a sociopath it was usually about whether they _would_.

He half-stated, half-questioned, before he could censor himself: "You know the differential pathology? God, sorry, that sounded so condescendingly medical Jargonese –"

Greg grinned, his teeth flashing very unBritishly-almost-American-orthodontistry-level-w hite against the remaining hint of holiday tan that was his face, but then his smile faded slightly, "Not intentionally, but I did some research and reading when this spotty self-declared genius adolescent Sherlock Holmes the self-styled _Consulting Detective_ set up shop or online e-business as it was in my town. I was…"

So he didn't have kids, but he could make the connections, "You were afraid that Suzy…"

"Yeah…I've seen it before – and not just with people we encounter on the job but fellow coppers, all decent people…just one child who is bad and defiant, who hasn't even really got any special needs…can destroy a whole family…"

He waited as Greg drifted momentarily, clearly lost in memory.

Sure enough, Greg carried on, "Once Social Services called us in to investigate this couple who turned their twelve year old into a Social services office and disowned her to State foster care. They were done. They'd changed the locks, et cetera. All the pressure was on to find that the couple were inadequate parents so they could go in guns blazing and withdraw the other three younger kids into foster care…but after the first week of investigating the only thing I could think was how they had held out that long or managed to have the self-control to not thrash the vicious little cow to within an inch of her life. I noticed the littlest one – about five – had a sprain bandage on his wrist. He told me he'd got it from building his night-fort to stop her. He wouldn't refer to the oldest girl by name. His parents admitted they'd made the decision to disown her to state care when they noticed the little boy had hurt his wrist and it turned out he barricaded himself into his bedroom every night."

"The worst thing is I can believe it. When _my _plan for world domination comes off, my first action will be to make every whiny Western teenager who thinks not having an iPod is a tragedy and that it's ok to mess about in school to live in Africa and then Arabia for three months each. Let them feel what it's like to live on one bowl of ground maize a day and sleep on a dried mud hut floor – especially the girls, to live in countries where one half of the human race is viewed as not even human just because they were born with two X Chromosomes instead of XY."

"Believe me, if I could have got that brat on a plane to Qatar or Saudi Arabia so she could see how the other half live, I would have. The parents were solid people, absolutely devastated…but like they said, every child should feel home is a haven, not a hellmouth…and Social Services soon changed their tune after a couple of years of giving her the kid-glove treatment in care only for her to be a constant whirling dervish of destruction. It's like that film a few years back…About Kevin?"

"'_We Need To Talk About Kevin'_, based on the Lionel Shriver novel." He remembered it had been sent to one of his mates in the 'Stan who had been deeply unimpressed with the 'depressing' subject matter rather than something by Pixar or some loud action movie a la _Fast and Furious…_but it had sparked quite a debate about 'nut jobs' and he had ended up, designated by the lads as the unit's 'scientist' by virtue of his medical degree, explaining about the differences between a psychopath and sociopath…which had led on to another debate since because psychopaths could be identified at birth through brain scans and couldn't be rehabilitated and sociopaths didn't have same severe damage to the orbital cortex and could be rehabbed, so what did you do once the burgeoning medical science developed to the point of being able to determine in neo-natal scans if the foetus fell into one category, rather than having to wait, as now, until post-natal scanning.

"Yeah…it's a horrible feeling, worrying that you might have to protect your child from…your other child. Fortunately all the tests and assessment showed that Suzy has mild autism and Asperger's but no anti-social personality disorders. I've always remembered the research I did though…" Greg's mouth twisted up, "…it's amazing how often you can spot the…personality indicators…that someone is a bad 'un when you know what to look for…" he squinted at the gravestone before them and drew in a soft breath, before beginning to recite, obviously some of it from memorised texts:

"A psychopath has no emotions, including no ability to feel or understand fear, although they can superficially mimic them – no remorse, or empathy, pathological lying, egomania, parasitic, violent and unrepentantly arrogant; they are completely amoral and care only about their own self-gratification. A sociopath has mostly superficial emotions and is conceited and egotistical, and isn't remorseful or empathetic, but is capable of empathy, affection and genuine relationships, but only on in very specific and small-scale circumstances. They care nothing about cultural norms or being useful to society generally. They are capable of morals and ethics within the contexts they deem worthy. They will lie, deceive and exploit and manipulate if they deem it necessary, and are capable of doing so with 'road to hell good intention' motives if it is someone they have developed affection for or allowed to become important. It usually takes them a long time to develop deep emotional relationships with another individual but if they choose to do so they will be intense, obsessive, possessive and violently jealous and will never have more than a couple of close emotional connections at one time – if ever at all – as they can't cope with anything more. They have no impulse control, and are intensely emotionally needy like toddlers and very volatile, but not necessary violent. Modern research indicates that someone can be born with brain malformations that would lead to psychopathy if the baby had the right – or wrong - upbringing, such as abuse or domestic violence, but that sociopaths are more made in early childhood again by bad childhoods or detrimental effects on brain development caused by environmental pollutants."

He said nothing for several seconds to give Greg's speech the accord it deserved, and signal his understanding of the reveal that to have researched that, and been able to _recite_ it the man had been a hell of a lot more than merely 'concerned' about his defective youngest kid's possibly psychopathy, "So you were able to take one look at Sherlock…"

"And then James Moriarty, and tell the difference where the likes of Sally Donovan couldn't? Yes, indeed." Greg nodded sharply. "In fact it was just after all that whatsit with the Baskerville lab…You ever heard of Professor James Fallon?"

He frowned at the vaguely familiar name then it clicked. "Yeah, Horizon, BBC Two September 2011 - _Psychopaths – Good or Evil?_ Of course I watched it…well, watched it on iPlayer after His Nibs had gone out to do some tests on the John Does in the morgue at Bart's for the afternoon."

"I've always thought truth was stranger than fiction," Greg agreed, "Eminent Canadian neuroscientist, Professor James Fallon, goes into prisons and uses the snazzy new Functional Brain Imaging doohicky to brain scan psychopaths and serial killers for research into his search for whether humans have a 'moral molecule', goes under the scanner himself only to find that genetically his brain has the congenital damage that means _he_ is a psychopath."

"A non-existent, malformed or low-functioning orbital cortex combined with the MAO-A gene if also present, which inhibits the calming effect of serotonin and is known as the warrior gene. Classic signifiers of the psychopathic and sociopathic genetic _predisposition_ which will be activated in the right – or wrong, for everyone else – circumstances. Yeah…I've done a lot of research myself since been dragooned by the Drama Queen and his cheekbones…and since Moriarty decided to stick his oar in…"

_And because ever since the swimming pool I've wondered whether Seb's working for Moriarty…a twinset of psychopaths, one obsessed with Sherlock and the other having it in for yours truly has been a possibility that's haunted my dreams since that swimming pool and my personal conviction that Moriarty's pet sniper or at least the chief one was Sebastian Moran…he'd have been laughing himself silly looking through that scope at me…_ "In the end, that's what made me go back and look at what was bothering me about _A Study in Pink_, and how I realised…she must have realised _what_ Jeff Hope's sponsor was, even if not who…"

Again they both looked down at the gravestone, and he saw Greg's face mirror his own regret for never having had the chance to know her, "Jennifer Wilson was at least as smart as Jim Moriarty and Sherlock, and outclassed Irene Adler just by breathing…I'd bet she would even have given Mycroft a run for his money both in smarts and superciliousness."

"Another word you've been waiting to use in context?" but Greg was nodding understanding, and agreement. "That was what I realised didn't fit…'_but that was ages ago, surely she's over that by now…'_ Sherlock was right, even when he was wrong…Jennifer Wilson didn't fit the pattern of Jeff Hope's other victims, she didn't fit the profile."

"How so?" he asked, although he was already fairly sure of the answer, since he would bet that it was a similar process to that which had led _him_ to the realisation of Jennifer Wilson's genius, her courage, and her self-sacrifice.

"At first I thought it was a spate of serial suicides – they do happen. It was the kid though – that seventeen year old lad – victim who threw me for a while. No matter what a generation of sitcoms and our current worship of vapid youth portray the fact is that anyone under the age of thirty is so naïve, life-inexperienced and over-confident in what they think they know that you can gull them into believing pretty much anything if you go about it the right way. A malign self-appointed pop psychologist…_anti-_psychologist I suppose, given the circumstances…like Jeff Hope didn't really have to break a sweat talking that kid into offing himself…"

He waited as Greg trailed off, marshalling his thoughts and ordering them before continuing.

"But when Sherlock chimed up with that crass crack the penny dropped…I went back and looked at all the cases and the one common link between all of those random unconnected suicides was that they were all _recently_ vulnerable…every single one of them had experienced a personal crisis impacting negatively on their emotional and psychological health within the previous two years of their deaths…Something for Jeff Hope to latch onto, to use as a hook, especially if he was being given a script by Moriarty to help him turn cab fares into victims...of course, we would only have thought of a cab driver _if _every fare he'd picked up had wound up dead, but of course the spiel would only work on someone already susceptible, someone already half-way to suicide on their own account due to whatever anguish they'd suffered being too _recent_ for them to have been too far along the recovery path for Jeff to weasel his way inside their heads…"

"And Jennifer Wilson didn't fit that profile…Sherlock being right even when he was wrong – something I will deny ever saying, until a week past the end of time, just to clarify – it was a clear decade ago that her daughter Rachel was stillborn."

"Exactly, and then there were all the mistakes that Jeff Hope made with her that he didn't make with the others – her travel case being left in his cab, her phone ending up in his pocket…starting with him being stupid enough to drop her off there. I sat there looking at the file, thinking about _how had she got to that derelict house?_…If Hope had dropped her off at some rinky-dink hotel in the middle of town, he'd have been home free, even from Sherlock."

"Yeah, I had that problem when I was first…back in Town…with my gammy leg and my crocked shoulder. I had to take a shitty bedsit in the middle of Town because of not being able to walk without pain so I needed the Tube and the buses and the cabs when I could afford them. The Tube, the buses…even poisoned she _could_ have walked to her hotel room without problem...but there – no nearby Tube station, no bus route with the right timetable, and there was no way she could have walked there with that crap coursing through her veins…so how did she get inside that derelict old house _under her own steam_ but _after _she had been poisoned?" he agreed.

Greg gave a sharp nod. "Even Anderson or Donovan would have come up with 'taxi cab' before the night was out – and since no London cabbie worthy of the name these days runs a cab without an internal surveillance camera _or _figuring out with his own two peepers when something is well dodgy, all we needed to was check cab footage and focus on those cabbies who didn't want to turn it over. When Sherlock confirmed we had some murder by suicide serial killer on our hands, the first thing that popped into my head was that Jennifer Wilson didn't fit the pattern of the victims because while they had in effect been murdered, she had _genuinely _committed suicide…but deliberately left us clues to get us straight to Jeff Hope…it seemed a bit far-fetched until I did some back-checking and found out she was one of the first two people to regularly follow Sherlock's website from when he first set up…then Donovan _finally_ deigned to inform me that there had been an anonymous tip off from an untraceable mobile phone about a _body_ in that house…a tip off that came about five minutes before the probable time of death and which was phoned through not to the general police line or even 999 but came through to _my office_."

"And you are the only police officer mentioned by name several times on Sherlock's website. What did you find?"

"Sherlock said that Jennifer Wilson's life was all in her phone, because there was no laptop or iPad with her body. _Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive…_' Greg quoted half to himself. "Given her decade as a serial adulteress yet with a still clueless husband she needed a ferocious self-organisation skillset, nerves of steel, ice in her veins, Oscar-winning acting chops, the ability to manipulate other people especially men like she was Yehudi Menuhin on his favourite violin and above all contingency plans and back-up to the back-up strategies up the yin-yang…"

"A _second_ mobile phone," he realised. "Not to mention that none of those characteristics, ingrained and honed after ten years of practice were likely to make her susceptible to Jeff Hope's pop psych. evaluation no matter how she felt over her daughter's stillbirth."

"Got it in one. So I went back on my own and had a look round the back garden – Triffid Central, I'll tell you. It took me an hour and I thought about giving up, I thought if Sherlock hadn't thought of it maybe it was more my own piqued ego talking than anything of substance…"

"But you found it." Not a question but a statement.

"Yeah…she'd taken the battery out and tossed the phone out the bedroom window, but a night in a bag of rice dried it out and it worked good as new. Nothing fancy at all, not like her main phone, just a very small, black slide-up Pay-As-You Go 3G mobile, fully charged with twenty quid credit and all her important and emergency numbers in it and up to date, just in case…Romie's the same…her iPhone is her life but she carries a PAY-Go back-phone fully charged and always at least a tenner in credit on her all the time, down her –"

He didn't smirk at Lestrade's blush as he broke off, instead finishing it for him, "Down her cleavage inside her bra…my sister Harry's the same…except I'm pretty sure she's got some Jessica Rabbit deal rigged up in case anyone tries to get _that_ phone uninvited…"

Greg flashed a grin at the reference to the film '_Who Framed Roger Rabbit_?' and the animated character who had a bear-trap in her Lara Croft style cartoon cleavage for anyone with impertinent hands. "I checked the call history and the anonymous tip through to my office came from that phone. Somehow, Jennifer Wilson got Jeff Hope to make the mistake of dropping her off at the house, left her case in the cab, got her smart phone in his pocket, managed to palm her back up mobile – I'd bet he had no clue she had a second phone on her - and then set up her own crime scene. From the meter and time-stamp on the in-cab CCTV cameras we know she had a clear fifteen minutes alone in the house after Jeff Hope dropped her off and watched her walk up the path – he waited only two minutes before he drove away, so she obviously managed to make him think she was in a much worse state than was the case. She dramatically part-carved her dead daughter's name into the floor, called my office with the tip, tossed the phone and then just went and lay down – it was all a set up to get Sherlock on the case. It was brave…and brilliant…I'm just not sure _why_ she did it."

"I've got a theory, but we'll never be able to prove it…"

"At this point I'll take it."

He nodded at the gravestone's lower lines, which read: _mother of Rachel_ _Jennifer Wilson_. "I think she did it for the kids…"

"What, Jeff Hope's?" Greg's mouth crimped; Sherlock had been oblivious but he had seen how Lestrade's face had mixed grim with sad when the Met was doing the clean-up at Kerr College and Lestrade had plucked the dog-eared photograph of Jeff Hope's young children from its pride of place on the dashboard of his cab.

"She knew what it was like to lose a child and she knew how the families of Jeff Hope's victims would have felt at their loss – parents, grandparents, siblings, children, spouses, friends. Beyond that, in her lifetime she was probably the most intelligent human being South of Watford Gap including Irene Adler and I bet she'd have given Sherlock and Moriarty a lesson in humility…I think she might even have been able to flick Mycroft's nose if she'd put her mind to it. And because of that it would have taken her all of ten seconds to see through Jeff Hope's carefully baited spiel to what he was really up to and only about five seconds after that to realise that gullible, deluded Jeff Hope was being taken for a fool and she wouldn't allow innocent people to die for a reward his poor, unknowing kiddies were never going to see a penny of."

It was there on Greg's face, knowledge. "Yeah…Hope _had _had a bank with far too much money in it…but the whole balance was e-transferred to Singapore six hours after…Hope was killed…" something in the man's tone indicated he knew perfectly well who had killed Hope, to save Sherlock Holmes, "…and then it was transferred again to the Cayman Islands – shocker – and we haven't been able to track it from there. His kids had had no contact with him for several years and all he really left were debts."

He nodded, completely unsurprised. "Alright, let me tell you a modern fairy tale. Once upon a time there was a little boy born called Jeff Hope. Nobody knew it but he had congenital malformations of the orbital cortex, and possibly also had the MAO-A warrior gene as well, that made him genetically predisposed to psychopathy. Except that it didn't happen, just like it didn't with Professor James Fallon, because Jeff had an ordinary, average, decent childhood and grew up into an ordinary, average – and once upon a time, decent – bloke with a nice white-collar job, wife, 2.4 kiddies and living the suburban dream."

"Until the part where they didn't live happily ever after courtesy of what was, I can confirm from doing the back checks, an _extremely _acrimonious divorce from Mrs Hope?"

"Mm. Yes…divorce…the breakdown of any relationship - whether romantic situation or platonic friendship is usually six of one and half-a-dozen of the other…especially in aggressive cases where both parties are acting like spoilt brats who want a good hiding more than their poor distraught kids or other people like mutual friends of the former Best Friends caught in the crossfire. I don't know…I guess we never will…maybe she had good reason for sole custody and denying access…maybe she was one of those selfish, cruel women who just want a sperm donor and to freeload off a bank account for twenty years with no qualms about tearing away someone's kids that they adore. Whatever, Hope's kids were the focus of his existence, and losing them from his life triggered all that rage and psychopathic predilection, especially when the villain defeated her victim and got his children, the nice house in the nice area he'd put all the work in to provide, et cetera and he lost his job due to his meltdown. So he manages to get by driving cabs just wallowing in bitterness and resentful spite until one day he crosses paths with James Moriarty somehow."

"Taxi fare…" Greg postulated. "From what I can see Moriarty's lived in London for years and he's got no _official_ driving licence that I've been able to find record of."

"Yeah, in Town you don't need a car if you've got buses, trains, taxis and the Tube around. So one day Jeff Hope picks up a fare that turns out to be a very twisted version of a fairy godmother, and finds himself being the world's first _sponsored serial killer_. For every murder he commits by getting the victim to murder himself, his sponsor _supposedly _pays twenty grand or whatever into an account for his kids' future."

"And Hope's too hopeless to realise he's being played."

"If I were Moriarty, I'd have calmed and soothed Hope by pointing out that the only people who could prove Jeff Hope had committed murder by forcing them to pick a pill at pistol point were his victims, ergo, all dead."

"Nice alliteration."

"Thanks – but Moriarty would have realised that sooner rather than later Hope's overconfidence would lead him to leave his victims to it before they were incapacitated enough to just die…that one of Hope's victims would have inspiration born of desperation and only pretend to swallow a pill, or manage to activate their gag reflex, or be able to make out they were more far gone than they were but manage to get help once Hope had driven away or even have a back-up mobile…but Hope's arrogance in abandoning his still-living victims at Kerr College – a public building packed with easily available telephones to call for help and night staff who would give succour to a distressed person – meant that he would be caught before very long…relatively speaking of course, which wouldn't do his further victims any good…and the thing about poison is that it's a very _idiosyncratic_ killer…and yes, waiting to use in context."

"Mm," Greg nodded, having investigated enough murders to comprehend the point but indicating his understanding by conceding, "There's a reason why poison is only the preferred method in Agatha Christie novels."

"Yeah, we had some nitwit once who tried to argue about 'hey, why can't cops and soldiers just be armed with _trank_ guns to take on armed robbers and terrorists?' Thing is with poison – with any narcotic – is that unless you're dealing with the really rare, exotic synthesised stuff like sarin or ricin…"

"Not available to any old maniac in the local supermarket for obvious reasons,"

"…it's individual to the person who's ingested it – height, weight, sex, age, general health, any medications, all factor in and can either drastically increase the speed of reaction, or slow it down tremendously, or neutralise it altogether…"

"Yeah, one case a few years back, came across it by accident, we thought the husband was trying to do in his wife, turned out it was the wife's niece who'd found out about the big wedge of life insurance she'd get a share of if both of them bought it. She'd be poisoning them for months, but the wife was very health conscious after hubby had a heart scare – just indigestion it seemed, but still – and they used to eat a charcoal capsule every day."

"Sure, I do. Eating small amounts of charcoal has been common across the world to settle the stomach and absorb toxins and neutralise nasties for thousands of years. I get my capsule from a firm that produces them for horses."

"The niece got impatient and made a garden centre cashier suspicious – her husband was a copper so we did some surveillance and caught her red-handed trying to rig the house to explode in a 'gas leak'. Nobody could work out why the couple weren't dead until the police surgeon asked them if they took any herbal remedies and she said charcoal. The charcoal absorbed enough of the poison to keep them alive and frustrate the niece."

"Jennifer Wilson was similar," he told Greg now, "Following Rachel's birth trauma she was high risk of developing early-onset osteoporosis so her GP put her on a high-calcium diet, lots of dairy…you might have noticed the porcelain skin and good complexion in her photographs."

"And milk can neutralise some poisons." Greg acknowledged.

"It was in her autopsy results, and her housekeeper confirmed it. Every day Jennifer Wilson ate at least one small tub of her favourite sheep's milk yoghurt, had goat's milk or ewe's milk cheese at lunch and drank at least two glasses of either buttermilk or full-cream goat's or cow's milk every day. Her stomach lining was so well-prepared it could have handled a Chernobyl-made Madras curry if it had to."

"That's why she was still alive a clear fifteen minutes after we worked out when Hope would have left her at the house which in turn was another fifteen minutes after – as he so fondly imagined – he had forced to take the pill. Molly Hooper said that all she needed to do to survive was to wait for Hope's taxi taillights to disappear around the corner and then make herself trigger her gag reflex to vomit up the pill. She would have been a fair bit poorly, but she'd have certainly survived, even at that point."

"Alternatively, knowing Moriarty – and a possibility I'd bet Jennifer Wilson thought of as well - it's equally as probable he would have just gotten bored and dropped an anonymous tip off to the Met's incident line shopping Hope. My guess is that about a couple of hours after Hope was arrested on suspicion of murder – and Moriarty would make sure there was sufficient evidence to charge him - all that money would be electronically transferred out of whatever secret account Moriarty had oh so helpfully set up for Hope, and since Hope was far too clever – at least in his own eyes – to let the police know about that secret account, even if or especially when he was found guilty and sent down, he wouldn't find out for a good while that the money was long gone. Moriarty would have known that Hope would have spent his time in prison making sure he didn't let any hint of the secret account slip out because he was too busy smugly and secretly gloating over how when he got out he was going to be able to metaphorically rub his ex-wife's face in the fact that deadbeat dad would be splashing the cash to the kiddies."

"And Jennifer Wilson being way smarter than us immediately twigged to that."

"I'd guess that Hope tried his spiel on all his taxi fares and enough proved susceptible for his ego to explode. Then one day he picks up a snooty middle-aged yuppie woman, all Margaret Thatcher lite and ridiculously _Pretty in Pink_ co-ordinated, and found his best victim yet, not realising that he stopped being in control about thirty seconds in…" he contemplated the headstone "…I'm sure she had seriously thought – planned out – various suicide methods over the years but always held back because once she was gone..."

"There would be nobody left to remember Rachel," Greg, a father, understood that. "Her husband told me after…at first he _did_ blame her for Rachel's death…he kept asking her to go on maternity leave when she had morning sickness but she wouldn't until only two weeks before…he was ashamed of the fact that when Rachel was stillborn, he was upset, but there was a part of him that was relieved that it was only a girl and they could try again and get it right next time. She in turn blamed him for pressuring her and they both blamed themselves as well. Roy Wilson deliberately shut out all memory and mention of his daughter because it hurt too much, but Jennifer misconstrued that as he didn't _care_ enough to remember she existed."

"Then she was presented with a golden opportunity…if she did it right, she could snag _you_ onto the case, and knew that _you_ would snag Sherlock Holmes…and if anyone could put the kibosh on nasty little Jeff Hope and his sicko sponsor it would be Sherlock Holmes, whose wunderkind website she'd been following from the second day he started it up. On top of that, she would ensure a lasting memorial to her daughter. What happened was sad but it's something being played out thousands of times a day in the UK, all over the world. Jennifer Wilson wouldn't even be a dust mote on the page of history, never mind a baby who'd never breathed, but thanks to Sherlock Holmes people would be reading about Jennifer Wilson – and if she staged her suicide appropriately – her daughter Rachel, for years, maybe even decades to come. Rachel Wilson would be remembered as a key component in Sherlock Holmes' online 'casebook'."

"I would have done it, in her place," Greg admitted.

He shrugged. "Like I said, she was way smarter than us, and certainly far more so than Jeff Hope. Her dissembling and man-manipulation skillset combined with his egotism meant he would have been revealing far more than he intended or even realised he had as he tried to get her into a _goodbye cruel world _headspace. She would have been the epitome of distraught and flustered and eminently distracting as she got him to the point where he could practically see another twenty-k floating in front of his eyes. Her GP would have warned about the neutralising effects of her dairy-rich diet on some medications so she would have taken a calculated gamble that Hope's poison pill wouldn't be as fast-acting as he thought it would be. Completely consciously unaware of the fact that she's in charge of what they're doing and has been practically from the outset, Hope 'coerces' her into taking the pill, and she lets him drive them around in the cab, pretending to be rapidly affected by it, and gets him to make a mistake by not dropping her at the hotel she must have told him she'd booked when he picked up her fare, but instead to drop her outside a house she must have already known was derelict somehow…"

"It was her paternal grandparents' home when she was growing up." Greg disclosed. "The…bedroom we found her in was hers when she was a kid…Her dad was career military and her mum was wise enough to put being a wife first, so she went to school in London as a day boarder and lived with her grandparents in the term time and then spent the school holidays in a variety of far-flung places with her parents, who for obvious reasons never owned their own property in the UK. All four of them were killed in a car wreck in the United States on a touring holiday a year after Jennifer graduated University…" He nodded his head over to the right.

He looked about six feet further up and saw a large headstone, listing two elderly and two middle-aged people all of whom had the same death date: _Gerard and Elsa Stoneleigh and their cherished son and daughter-in-law James and Genevieve Stoneleigh_ _beloved parents and grandparents of Jennifer Stoneleigh_…

"She rented the house out but put it in trust for…her eldest child…when she found out she was expecting…after Rachel…and when she found out she couldn't have any more kids…she couldn't bring herself to do anything with it so it just got dilapidated." Greg finished sorrowfully.

He brought it back on track. "Right, so, she staggers up the path like a Geordie lass after a night of serious alcopopping, with Hope sniggering at her from his cosy cabbie's driver seat, content to watch her go because he knows that here in semi-derelict suburbia there's no way she can get help, unaware she's nowhere near as incapacitated as he thinks she is. He watches her manage to get inside the house, but doesn't realise it's odd that a woman severely weakened by poison can supposedly force open the door of a solid Edwardian townhouse derelict or not, of course I bet she would have carried the key to her grandparents' house with her in her purse for sentimental reasons, like she did a photograph of…Rachel?"

"Yeah, and the group shot of the five of them at her graduation the year before they were killed." Greg confirmed.

"Hope drives off happily and then Jennifer makes her choice. She would have realised she didn't feel ill enough for there to be a fatal dose absorbed – yet, so she could change her mind…but she didn't. She also knows her man – her GPS enabled smart phone is in her killer's cardigan pocket and even if he picks up another fare straight away it will be at least twenty minutes before he gets to an area of London where that is likely to happen so worst case scenario she has twenty clear minutes of where Jeff Hope is driving around London with a bright pink suitcase he's forgotten all about behind the driver's seat and a GPS phone he doesn't know is there logging his every turn and direction in his pocket. Like Sherlock showed us, it took Hope an hour to realise he still had the case and ditch it, and he didn't realise he'd got the phone at the time."

"Jennifer Wilson knew that when we –" Greg's general hand wave indicated the Met police in general, as opposed to just himself and his own team – "picked up Jeff Hope, we'd be able to demonstrate forensically that her phone and Jeff Hope had been in the same place at the same time for at least two hours, including _past_ her T.O.D., which would prove that Jeff Hope was the _last_ person to see a poison victim alive, and could be legitimately asked the question as to _why_ he didn't notice anything was amiss and didn't Mrs Wilson say she'd been poisoned and tell him who'd done it and by the way, sir, is this your handgun and do you not realise it has been illegal for private citizens to own a handgun since 1996? The CPS would prosecute on those grounds, even just for the pistol ownership, and once we started digging and comparing external CCTV to Hope's mysteriously malfunctioning in-car cameras we would have him on picking up the other victims as fares too. All of which beautiful, beautiful Jennifer figured out for herself in the first two minutes."

"Exactly…I'd say she went upstairs to her old bedroom…Hope had her suitcase…I bet she'd fooled him into thinking her only phone – the smart-phone – was inside it, which was why he didn't need to force her to throw it out the window or some such…but she didn't have anything proper to cut with so she had to use her fingernails and to gouge out dramatically _Rache_…it might have been hurting too much to finish but I think she left it unfinished deliberately to snag Sherlock's interest…she probably sussed him out personality wise without ever actually needing to meet him and guessed that he needed things not to be too easy. So she makes sure her handiwork is dramatically in place and waits she can feel the tiredness really start to affect her – there may not have been any actual pain with the poison. She uses her back up mobile to place the anonymous tip to your office rather than the Met's incident hotline and then buggers the phone by whipping out the battery and tossing it in two halves out of the bedroom window so the police can't activate the phone's locator. Then she goes and lies down on the floor, and just goes to sleep with a smile, secure in having immortalised herself and her daughter to history and having become a gigantic spanner in James Moriarty's shenanigans…brave, brilliant, beautiful Jennifer…without whom Sherlock might not still have realised there was a festering cancer called Moriarty suppurating vile moral toxins into the world who needed to be stopped."

"Yes but stop how?" Greg asked significantly. "The Met isn't anywhere as incompetent as Sherlock and the press make out, but we're nowhere near as good a police force as we used to be before the politics and the politically correct brigade neutered us and then still expected us to breed champion crime fighters. Moriarty is way beyond our capability to deal with, and given Sherlock's ego _does _outstrip his talent, tremendous though that is, I'm worried that it's beyond him too."

"Don't worry; you'll get nothing but total agreement from me on both points." He sighed. "And from my perspective, Moriarty is..."

"Escalating, in criminal psychology terms. I anonymised everything and ran it by this American profiler I met on an exchange seminar years ago, a Dr Sam Walters-Grant; her first husband was murdered by a serial killer who tried to do in her second, too. Her sum up of Sherlock was 'whack a do' but not intrinsically bad. With Moriarty she just handed me back his file and said, 'shoot on sight - completely rabid'."

"Very heartening." he retorted sarcastically.

"The thing is whenever I picture it in my head I don't see James Bond versus the super-villain I see Blofield duking it out with Goldfinger, with everything around them carelessly and uncaringly exposed as collateral damage." he left the, 'including me and you' unsaid. "Unless you have any notions how we can take down Moriarty?"

"We can't and we won't." he said bluntly. "An old saying in my family is that you raise no defence against an enemy you don't know is there. Moriarty has been able to keep himself under everyone's radar for years and the playing field isn't just canted in his favour it's like a see-saw where on one side we're the feather and he's a pregnant elephant on the other."

Greg winced but looked resigned. "It's what I'm afraid of."

"It's gone past the tipping point now. The pair of them are obsessed with each other - they're like binary stars locked in a mutual orbit, spiralling closer and closer together until collision and boom! No matter what we did, Moriarty would find a way to circumvent it. Short of finding the man, walking up to him on a London street and just shooting him or shoving a ricin tipped umbrella into his thigh, neither of which will do anything but destroy our lives we have no choice but to let Moriarty think he's won."

"Give up?" Greg looked at him with suspicious astonishment.

"I said_ think_ he's won, not just stand there wringing our hands." He corrected tartly. "My dad was a great one for reverse psychology - no matter how badly he wanted something his stock response was an 'oh well' shrug and 'yes it would be nice but if you want it that's fine...' he got far more by letting the other person think they'd come out on top or whatever it was and then quietly going after what he wanted when the other person didn't notice anymore or didn't feel a need to defend their ego or status."

"Mm, yes, that's worked very well on several cases but do you think Moriarty will fall for it?"

"I think his egomania is so pathological by now he simply won't be able to do otherwise. But it doesn't matter. We have no choice; the only rear-guard action we're capable of that has a realistic chance of working so we can protect Sherlock - from himself as much as Moriarty - is to try and stay alive through the machine gun fire and exploding shells and _then _hope we're all still around to pick up the pieces afterwards so we can stop Moriarty once and for all whilst he's gloating over his perceived 'victory'."

"Assuming that we're able to pull anything together to block what he thinks he's got away with. There's no way to know what stunt he'll pull other than it will be completely megalomaniacal and spectacular." Greg opined gloomily.

"What choice do we have?" he admitted wearily. He nodded slightly. "If she were still alive, able to use that ferocious intellect to yank our arses out of the fire...if Mycroft even bothers to try and protect Sherlock, never mind us...It's a waiting game. And..." he checked his watch, "...that's my exit line to get back home five minutes before Sherlock."

"All we can do is all we can do," Greg nodded with a half-shrug, giving a slight nod in honour to the gravestone they were about to leave until the next time.

The quote popped into his head from somewhere, he'd never been into the poetry, not like Greg clearly was, "We also serve; Who stand and wait."

© 2013, The Cat's Whiskers

All rights reserved

End of Part I.

This story concludes in Part II

NB – a brief nod to TV shows _Hawaii 5-0 _(2010) and _Profiler_.

Please note – to my knowledge all science related statements in this story are taken from real research. People who have orbital cortex damage, and the MAO-A gene and produce Oxytocin from being a Guanine-carrier on the OXTR gene rather than Adenine-carrier on the OXTR gene are statistically far more likely to have strong psychopathic tendencies which may evolve due to an abusive childhood. Basically a predisposition to psychopathy is nature, whilst sociopathy is more a lack of nurture.


End file.
